


Lines of ice from rolling waves and subtle villains

by CityOfScreams



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series, star tre
Genre: Boarding School, Bullying, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Genderfluid Character, High School, Investigations, Its not actually academy but its like if the academy had its own highschool, M/M, Making Friends, Mystery, Personal Growth, Secrets, Starfleet Academy, Swearing, Trans Character, Trans Hikaru Sulu, Trans Pavel Chekov, Trans Spock (Star Trek), Xenophobia, not transphobia, trans characters but not written creepily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 20,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25361821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CityOfScreams/pseuds/CityOfScreams
Summary: Spock's parents must leave to work on an important space treaty, the treaty is far from vulcan and it would take both of them working a year away from home. The last time Amanda left Spock to care for himself he was seriously injured by another young vulcan, not wanting to leave him on vulcan, Amanda and Sarek send him to a boarding school on earth which will have round the clock the security.Spock is not a fan of this.He plans to escape the school and live in the flat that Sarek owns on earth, not too far from school, but decides to give the school a chance first, he doesn't think it will take long for someone to insult him. But in a move to infuriate his father he entered the school wearing a hat, and he is not sure whether the humans talking to him have realised, he is not human, but he doesn't feel like taking of his hat anytime soon.He appears to be getting a long with his dorm, except the boy he doesn't know, the boy who went missing, and may or may not be dead. In fact, there are quite a few students missing from the school, and no one seems to be investigating - no one but him.It features trans(boy) Spock, Pavel is gender fluid, but in a casual way.
Relationships: Christine Chapel/Nyota Uhura, James T. Kirk/Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock, Spock/Nyota Uhura
Comments: 10
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

When the news comes

Chapter 1 

The news was enough to behead a full grown man, and as a boy of fifteen, it was enough to behead him. His training faulted, his mouth opens ready to snarl, his eyes meet his fathers and he resumes his composure.  
“Mother, I do not understand what you are telling me” he said across the dinner table. Amanda smiled as she dipped her bread into her soup.  
“Your Father and I are very busy recently. Our current peace treaty negotiations will need help from both of us, and they take place more than a months travel from here. We highly suspect our negotiations will last some time. You must go to a boarding school on earth.”  
“I’m vulcan.”  
“Well a few things had given it away” Amanda shakes her head with a smile.  
“Father I am old enough to stay at home and attend school by myself, I do not need to go to a school on earth. If I do it will ruin my education.” Spock said. He could see it in his Samekh’s eyes, he agreed with him. A sharp look from Amanda.  
“We have left you alone for a couple of months before” Sarek said carefully.  
“And I, and my studies were well” Spock said.  
“You put three boys into hospital.” Sarek said.  
“It was self defence” Spock said angrily.  
“Which I don’t agree with” Sarek said.  
“Then you would have a dead son, but maybe that’s what you want.”  
“Spock” Amanda shouts, and he jumps, between the two Spock often found his mother to be the less emotional “that is not the issue. The issue is something happened.” Spock looked from right to left, finding his Father now eyeing only his food.  
“Honey” she reaches across and takes his wrist “if you get into a fight, if you get into a lot of trouble here while we’re away I’m not certain there’s anyone here to help you. They may put an end to a fight in progress if they see it, or if you come bleeding to their door, but other than that you just don’t get the help here any one else does.”  
“What other help could I need?”  
“If you tell someone a group of vulcans is plotting to kill you I want you to be taken seriously. I cannot leave with peace of mind knowing last time I did you were almost murdered, and before that you had tried to ask for help. I can’t see anything to stop that happening again.”  
“They were in the hospital for several months, they would have to be highly unwise to try again” Spock mumbled.  
“Spock, there’s just no telling, it could be others it could be more. If you go to earth, most people will not be as strong as you, and you will be able to ask for help, you will be believed.”  
“Or they will see me as an alien I so obviously am and try to kill me on sight.”  
“No, this is a school that holds it’s diversity above all else, they have zero tolerance for any discrimination, and they have already had several other hybrid people attend. Although there was apparently some adjustment needed for their species socially speaking they rated it very well.”  
“What kind of hybrids?”  
“Orion mixes, and even andorians mixes.”  
“Is that it?”  
“They have several gorn too.”  
“Can’t orison’s hypnotise humans with their smell?”  
“Thats hardly their fault. Can’t you control humans with your mind?”  
“Thats not really a trait of every vulcan.”  
“What?” Sarek says puzzled “whilst you are a strong telepath, there will be no telepathic communication between you and other pupils, and certainly no mind melds.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Sarek, dear I was comparing and unfair ability Spock had mentioned of the orion’s, some of who have grown up completely on earth.”  
“Oh, I see.” Sarek nodded.  
“Father, what about my education? It took me a long time to get my grades up, who knows the kind of damage this could do.”  
Sarek looks him in the eye “I have observed the school in question, it will not let your grades down, you will not have a learning pod but the classrooms are relatively small, and the culture you will be able to pick up on while attending will be almost impossible for you to pick up else where. There are also a number of safety protocols that, given the worst case scenario, will keep even you safe.”  
“What if I punch a human in the face and kill them.” Spock says blandly.  
“Spock! Don’t do that. It’ll be fine, and if things are bad, you can just live with your cousins on earth.” Amanda said “I have spent a long time thinking this through and this, sounds better for you. You may academically speaking do well here, but you are always in fights. I guarantee you will not get into as many on earth.”  
“A bold claim.” He says.  
“Well it doesn’t matter” Amanda says “you will go and that is final.”  
“If I get stabbed at the new school too?”  
“You will live with your cousins, or I will book you transport to our location” Amanda said “and you can spend the whole year on my ship while we are on peace treaty talks.”  
Spock sighed stabbing his food “what about I-chaya.”  
“You can bring him.” Sarek said.  
Spock frowned looking up “to a school?”  
“Indeed” Sarek said “many of their pupils their have pets.”  
“What kind of school is this?”


	2. So we arrive on Earth

So we arrive on earth.

Chapter 2

Earth was chaos. Vulcan cities may have been overflowing with people who never learnt to mind their own business, where privacy was afforded only in relation to ones personal life and behind closed doors, but earth was chaos. Was anyone paying attention to anyone else? Both yes and no, several times loud rowdy men pointed at Spock and shouted:  
“Oi! Vulcan,” why he had no idea. He’d never seen vulcans do this even by those who hated him for being a hybrid. Was it a statement of fact made by those who were mentally disabled, and was this gesture innocent, the same as a child pointing at a sky and saying, blue? Or was it something more violent? It was by the way, the sky, blue. Which was weird, there was little blue on vulcan, the seas were pink, the skies orange, although many of his clothes were blue, it was different seeing the colour where it naturally occurred. Other groups shouted at him too. Groups of girls huddled in groups would suddenly grow 3 times the size and point at him.  
“Mother, at least on vulcan the vulcans pretend they aren’t talking about me. Send me back.” Spock said as they walked past another group. His mother, who was the only one he was shopping with looked more stressed than she had at his whining that the school was illogical, and that he was going to choose magic as a serious study course if he was forced to attend. That didn’t seem to bother his mother all that much, but it did make his father twitch in ways he hadn’t seen before, so he had put it down as one of his options along with science and computers. Of course his father wanted him to do computers, and math.   
“Maybe we should get you a hat. You could wear my scarf for now” Amanda motioned as she went to untie her scarf.  
“If I even begin to remotely look like a girl I’m going to kill myself” Spock said. Amanda sighed.  
“Listen, don’t let their shouting bother you. In school that will completely disappear, it won’t be stood for at all. They have plenty of other aliens attend, they can’t have people just shouting out species randomly. I feel the people out today our rather dim, and drunk.”  
Spock shrugged “fine. But only because I’ve been called worse and they’re validating the fact I’m vulcan.” Amanda sighed, she wished her son wouldn’t say things like this. He wished this wasn’t true for him.  
“Can you read the email and remind me what we need to buy?” Amanda asked “I’ve forgotten.” Spock flicked up his lightweight tablet that he had been carrying in his hand non-stop for the past three days.

The Letter:  
For first years attending the school each pupil must bring with them the following :  
General Lessons:  
Notebooks for each lesson, at least one new one per term.  
General stationary, including pens, pencils, scissors, gluesticks, and celllotape.  
Scientific Calculator  
Protractor and compass  
Shorts for p.e, unacceptable clothes include jorts. Shorts may be any colour but no patterns, pictures, characters, or 100 pictures of Nickolas Cages face may be on them.  
Jogging bottoms/leggings (plain in colour, no patterns).  
Suitable shirt or jumper for p.e (no slogans or patterns.)  
Hairbands/bobbles   
Tablet

If magic is a chosen subject they will need to bring:  
Tarot cards  
Tea Cup  
Crystal ball

Spock hummed as he read through the items that were relevant to him, and they stopped outside a sports shop.  
“Why does this say first years on it?” Spock asked.  
“Oh, sometimes parents think their children will be better in a school that caters for children between the ages of 11-14 as they’re still very young. This is a school for older 15—17 year olds. Isn’t that good?”  
“How?”   
“You won’t be alone on your first day of school.” Amanda said.  
“I guess” Spock said as he tried to work out if there were any benefits (currently Spock’s new slogan was ‘I guess’ but what it actually meant was ‘I have no idea how that makes sense’). They entered the sports shop.

The walked around aisles to the shorts and jogging bottom sections. Spock picked up plainest, blackest pair of each he could find.  
“You can wear colour now.” Amanda encouraged.  
“I don’t want to.”  
“You could.”  
“And yet I’m not going to.” Spock said and Amanda sighed, she could see this wasn’t going to be an argument she won. They walked past some hats and Amanda puts a black cap over his head, that was just large enough to go over his ears.  
“Mother. I don’t need a hat.” Spock said.  
“I don’t want you to hide who you are, but it would be nice for people to stop yelling at you. At least while we’re walking down the street.” Amanda says the words as though she is stabbing herself with each one.  
“So a hat is going to solve this.”   
“It might.. reduce the amount of shouts” Amanda reasoned “you don’t have to if you think thats worse.” Spock took off the black cap and picked up a sparkling silver hat, that was enough to make an elder vulcan faint on the spot. He put it on his head. Amanda grinned.  
“You may have that hat.”  
“Oh” Spock said, this hadn’t been what he wanted at all.  
“Your father will hate it. And I’ll get you the black one too incase you suddenly find it too garish.” Amanda said.  
“Okay but, I’m going to wear this non-stop as soon as I get back to vulcan. ” Spock said although he had absolutely no plans to do so, if the vulcan sun reflected of this hat there seemed to be a great possibility that it would kill someone else upon immediate impact.  
“You can, I am allowing it.” Amanda said. Spock didn’t know how to react. His mothers logical boundaries must have disappeared into the atmosphere as soon as they arrived on earth.

The walked around to the sports bra section, and Amanda stopped suddenly. Spock almost bumped into her. Spock looked about awkwardly.  
“Wrong section” he said.  
“The thing about human school is you will be expected to do sports in front of other people.”  
“And.”  
“You can’t do that in a binder.”  
“And yet I will.”  
“No you won’t” Amanda said quietly but with such force it was enough to stop him in his tracks. She picks up a few.  
“Do you want black or another colour.”  
“Black.”  
“Okay.”  
“Now we need tarot cards, a tea-cup and a crystal ball.” Spock said looking down at his tablet despite having already memorised them.  
“Do you want to try these on? Check they fit?” Amanda asked.  
“No. Where are we going to get this stuff? Is this stuff even real?”  
“Oh I looked up a little place around here” Amanda said and lead the way to the changing rooms.  
“I said no” Spock said.  
“I am saving you. You do not want to do p.e in clothes you’re not comfortable in, go try them on.”  
“They’re the right size.”  
“It’s completely different to finding out if their comfortable, go on.”

* * *

There was a lot of crystal balls in the shop display. Every inch his eyes looked on, sparkled with crystals. Crystals on necklaces, crystals on rings, crystals on pendulums - and a number of dragon ornaments.   
“I should not have chosen magic” Spock sighs already defeated, Amanda laughs.  
“Don’t think we don’t know you did that on purpose, your going through with it now” Amanda laughs pushing her son forward. They walk in through a dark blue door, and a bell above their heads rings as they enter.  
“Good morning” a woman, with curly straw like hair behind a till greets them.  
“Morning” Amanda replies “do you have any tarot cards?”  
“I have a few selections available at the back” she points “would you like help choosing one?”  
“No thank you” Amanda says and they walk in the direction the lady had pointed, around tables full of small gems with a ‘buy 4 get 1 free’ deal around them. The back of the store was different, slightly less gems appearing and more wooden rings. Much to Spock’s confusion, there were several wands and tall staffs with fancy curved wood tops.  
“Why?” Spock asks pointing to a staff.  
“Walking stick” says Amanda.  
“Why?” Spock asks pointing to the wand.  
“Religious practices. Your the one that choose magic, my aunt used to practice you know.”  
“Is that the one married to the uncle who tried to kill me?” Spock asked.  
Amanda sighed “well she’s divorced him now.”  
“Erm” a voice from behind them, the shop keeper with wide eyes and a few extra packs of tarot cards in her arms said “I just remembered my shipment arrived this morning with some different tarot styles, so I thought I’d set them out for you.”  
“Oh, thank you” Amanda said as the lady walked forwards and put down several extra packs. Amanda picked up one pack covered in cats, Spock picked up one that was black.  
“You can take them out and have a look if you’d like, just remember to put them all back in.” The lady says and backs away, Amanda nods.  
“This one” Spock says and chooses the cards that are all black except for the symbols outline on them, such as the 8 of swords which had 8 rainbow swords on it.  
“Are you sure?” Amanda asks showing off the cats “I bet I could custom order one like this, but with sehlats instead.”  
“I’m sure.” Spock said. Amanda shakes her head as they walk back over to the till.  
“Well at least this has been quick. Excuse me do you have any crystal balls? The type you can see the future in.” Amanda asked  
“Strange” the woman says “you’re the seventeenth person to ask me that.”  
“There is a school nearby that has magic lessons, this is one of the requirements.” Amanda informs her.  
“Oh” says the woman with her teeth as she looks up to her ceiling for a moment “yeah that would make sense. I thought everyone must just be like geeze, that Gandalf guys, pretty neat.”  
Amanda nodded “I’m aware it’s a new school, is it new this year then, or is this a new shop?”  
“Oh, I only brought the place a few months ago” the woman says as she places a large crystal on the bench “I guess I should check out the requirements that school has and get some in stock. Whats it called?”  
“Saint Daimon’s" Amanda nodded.  
“Nice, modern. Hey I’ll tell you what, if you buy this big crystal ball I’ll give you and your son a discount on any of these protection stones. Never hurts to have a little extra help” she says and she waves her hand over a collection of different sized gems, some smooth, some rough like rocks.  
“Would you like a magical stone for protection?” Amanda asks Spock calmly. Spock picks up a hand size rough orange stone covered in blue lines. He chucks it up into the air and catches in neatly in his palm.  
“Yes. This looks like a protection stone” Spock says and places it next to the tarot cards and crystal ball. Amanda eyes him suspiciously.  
“I don’t like how you handled that at all.” Amanda says.  
“You said I could have the protection stone.” Spock says with one raised eyebrow.  
“Is that all I can help you with?” The woman asks.  
“Yes thank you.”  
“Card or print?”  
“Print” Amanda says as the woman types up the cost into her till.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

His father was up for breakfast the morning Spock came out of his bedroom. They had a large house on vulcan, and a small apartment in the town of san fransico because of his fathers close work with earth, and because his mother often liked to visit Earth at least 4 times a year. She couldn’t bare the heat a lot, and if she was to go out on vulcan she usually did when the sun was rising or setting. It seemed peculiar to Spock as he often ignored warnings and would walk into the middle of vulcan’s forge during the heat of the day. Amanda always said she loved vulcan, but she enjoyed spending a week or two occasionally on earth, to explore, visit friends and family, and stock up on her favourite foods or seeds.

Today there was a pit in his stomach that meditation didn’t seem to quell. His new school was not near any vulcan desert that he could sprint into, where people would eventually give up following. What if he wanted to be alone? He needed to be alone. Although meditation didn’t keep the pit away Spock instead reminded himself that he wasn't going to be at school long, as he’d find a way to leave. Whether it was with his parents permission, or without. He put his suitcase by the front door and walked over to the breakfast table of plomeek soup. It was his favourite soup.  
“This is an unusual meal to have for breakfast” Sarek commented.  
“It’s Spock’s last one, possibly for the year” Amanda said “and I thought he might appreciate it.” Spock nods his head once, he wants to say yes, he wants to say thank you, but he feared that each word he could say in front of his father might not correspond to the strictest set of logic, and this early in the morning was a time well before his rebellious attitude had a chance to wake. Amanda said nothing, put a hand on Spock’s wrist and smiled before going back to her breakfast. After breakfast Sarek removed the bowls from the table and began to wash them.  
“Okay it's time to get going” Amanda said standing up and she and Spock moved towards the door.  
“Goodbye son” Sarek said not looking up from his washing. Spock put on his shiny silver hat.  
“Bye” he said walking out the door.

Amanda walked with him towards the school, she wanted to be with him for as long as possible.  
“Why don’t I just live in the flat on earth and live off take out for a whole year?” Spock asked.  
“Spock. Are you really going to wear that hat on your first day of school?” Amanda asked.  
“I’ve already put it on” Spock said, he was growing very illogical of it.  
“If you fancy spending half term in the flat, I could see that, but at least phone and let me know first. You’ll be safe in the school and thats where I want you to stay.” They stopped outside the school where the roads were packed with traffic, hover busses, hover cars and a few ships flying overhead. Amanda dutifully placed a kiss on Spock’s forehead.  
“Good luck, and if you run into any trouble, if anyone says anything even slightly to you, phone me right away.” Amanda said.   
“Okay” Spock gave up “what am I to define as mean?”  
“Anything that can be describe with the sound ‘phobic’ like xenophic.” Amanda said, both her hands on his shoulders.  
“Claustrophobic.” Spock said.  
“You’re doing it on purpose now. Go on, I love you,” Amanda said and pushed him off to follow the multiple signs placed around the outside of the school. The signs read ‘this way first years’. Several students of a higher year, wearing lanyards and ‘helper’ tags pointed and pushed the scurrying first years to the far end of the building. Spock was led to towards an area with a number of wooden picnic tables, where trees were growing apples along the side of the building, and a final arrow pointed to a propped open double door, inside of which were a lot of tables and chairs. The last sign read ‘take a seat in here’. Incase he couldn’t read there were more elder years with badges that said ‘prefect’ pointing them into the building.

The first years were all bundled into a huge cafeteria, mixed with square and rectangular tables, with wooden chairs placed around them. At the very end of the room, was a stage, with an empty podium and microphone. People streamed in from every angle, yelling and tumbling. Spock needed to sit at a table. He needed to do it fast, he needed to choose, square or rectangle. His immediate thought was square, but he didn’t want to be stuck sitting next to just 1 or 2 other people. If that happened he might be expected to make conversation, or he’d come off as rude. The more people at the table, the less likely they were to talk to him, right? He found an empty rectangular table that could fit six people along the sides, and two at the edge if you really wanted to push your luck. He chose a seat along the side, at the edge. He pulled out his phone, and began to chew it, and then immediately stopped. He didn’t know what had compelled him to chew it, but he had caught himself hopefully before anyone else saw. He turned it on and off. He wanted to looked at his phone, but he didn’t want to do anything on it. Someone pulled out the chair at end of the table, which was next to him.  
“Hello” they said sitting at the end of the table.  
“Hi” Spock said. They had sharp angular features, a rectangular chin with a small dib, large round ears, and brown hair, cut in a shape of a bowl, with several escaping curls. They, also had a sticky label stuck to the centre of their chest which read ‘they/them’ underlined.  
“Nice hat” they said.  
“Oh.” Spock said, he had completely forgot he was wearing it “thanks. Erm, nice… pronouns.”  
“Yah? Pretty neat right? No ones going to misgender me this year if I make it clear from the start, right?”  
“That makes sense. I’m Spock, whats your name?” Spock said coming off as far friendlier than he intended.  
“I’m” they pursed their lips and squinted.  
“I’m? Spock asks wondering if that’s their name.  
“Hold on I forgot my name.” They say.  
“You forgot your own name?” Spock asked with his eyebrows raised, not that they could be seen beneath his hat.  
“I had a dead name, and I chose a better name but lots of kids made fun of me for it, so I thought with this school I’d go in fresh with a new name since it wasn’t legal anyway.”  
“Okay” Spock said, what they had said did make sense to him, he just found the concept of forgetting a name, chosen or not to be bizarre.  
“You got to help me choose a new one, quick.” They said desperately placing their hands on the table in front of them.  
“What?! I am sorry I cannot help you choose a new name. We have only just met” Spock said he really didn’t know what to do now. While this human was attempting friendly conversation, Spock had never had a conversation like this, at all. On vulcan if something was a personal matter, it stayed personal.  
“I’m just nervous!” They said in a panic, as two others took a seat on the opposite side of the table. One girl with long blonde hair and a large squashed black mole on her chin, and a boy with spiked blond hair.  
“Hey I’m Becky” the girl said with a long drawn out southern accent, and she places a hand on the boy next to her “and this is Jim.”  
“Hi” Jim said with a slight tilt of his head and a tiny smile on the corner of his cheek “nice hat.” Was that sarcasm or not?   
“Thanks.”  
“Whats your name?” He asks.  
“Spock.”  
“I’m” they said in a rush to introduce themself “I’m Moriarty?”   
“Moriarty? Thats a neat name” Jim says his eye lighting up.  
Moriarty sweated “it sure is.” Spock was uncertain if Moriarty was their chosen name as he still didn’t seem very certain of it. There was still a scuffle going on at the other side of the hall, as though the doors had somehow become blocked and hundreds of people were trying to get indoors.  
“Take a seat please” one adult yelled, or possibly a tall prefect. At the the other end near the stage’s podium was a man. His eyes searching the room from left to right, taking note.  
“I’m going to start by saying it” Becky said almost yelling to be heard over the rumble of noise made from movement, and someones screaming “I don’t believe in magic, when I told my parents I wanted to go here because they ran a course on magic, I was under the impression they were going to teach me to be a professional magician.”  
“A magician you say? Did you know the first travelling magicians came from russia?” Moriarty asked leaning forwards.  
“No. Thats cool.” Becky said.  
“Can you do any tricks?”Moriarty asked. Becky took out a pile of her cards and shuffled them.  
“Pick a card, and then put it back” she said leaning over to Moriarty. Mortality picked out an ace of spades, showed it to Spock and placed it back. Becky shuffled the cards and pulled out a king.  
“Is this your card?” Becky asked.  
“No” Moriarty said. Spock frowned his mouth opening slightly. He’d only been here a few moments but he already didn’t know what he was witnessing. Becky shuffled the cards and pulled out the two of hearts.  
“What about this?” Becky asked.  
“No.” Moriarty said grinning.  
“So you agree I need professional training to be a magician?” Becky asked, her eyes reaching across the table to milk the words from him.  
“I mean” Moriarty said nodding his head to the side “I guess.”  
“Were any of you guys under the false assumption you were going to train to be a magician?” Becky asked “because I can’t be the only one who made that mistake.”  
“I was not” Jim said “but, magic’s totally going to be a bonus of this shit-fest, gonna get a real nice kip in that lesson.”  
“I didn’t choose magic” Moriarty said “they have really good science courses here, and I wanted to use them to get into starfleet.” Becky gasped and she went to say something but stopped when the man on the stage at the end of the room tapped a microphone.  
“Ladies, gentleman, in-betweens and others, please quiet down, it’s time to begin.”


	4. A strange boy

Chapter 4

“It is my honour to welcome you here today. I am Mr Daimon, the headmaster. I’d also like to welcome you to the cafe. It isn’t usually this busy, but at times like this, the stage is necessary. This will be where you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is closed the rest of the time but if you are the snacking sort you can always take away some fruit, or find the vending machines across campus, although we don’t sell chocolates and crisps anymore, after we raised the obesity rating in our area several years ago, there are several good snacks in the vending machines, nuts, cereal bars, cup noodles, and fruit.”  
“I’m sure you all know this is a school that prizes our diversity, in all its shapes and forms, whether its species, religion or sexuality. In this school, we truly put our minority first. I will now leave you in the capable headmistress Mrs MacDougal.” 

A human woman, older wrinkled like a pitbull, and with a crazed spark to her eye, took the microphone and somehow, while her glazed look danced across the group, looked each of the new years in the eye.  
“Good morning children” a thick Scottish accent wrapped its way around the room, almost comforting, almost terrifying “in a moment, I will call your name, and you will then you will go to the back of the room and stand near our prefect in the bright yellow vest…” she points. There were several people standing at the back of the room, several of them Spock recognised from outside. One of them put up a hand and waved.

“Alice Anderson” Mrs McDougal cooed, and a girl stood up with her bags and walked towards the prefect. This continued with all the names. Eventually, and sooner than he expected she called Spock’s name.  
“Spock” she sighs “I’m slaughtering this, don’t correct me right now. Too guy, Schiin.” God she really did slaughter his name. Spock stood and walked across like the others had done. She stood next to the prefect, and Jim, who had already been called. Then a moment happened. One Spock would never forget. Mrs MacDougal looked to her list and into the microphone she spoke.  
“Pavel Chekov.” A gasp sounded in the hallway, and on that far from table Spock had come from, Moriarty stood up.  
“That’s my name, that’s my name. I’m Pavel.” Pavel who had previously claimed his name was Moriarty said as he walked over to stand next to Spock.  
“….thats a nice name” Spock said quietly.  
“I thought your name was Moriarty.” Jim said.  
“It’s not. I forgot my name, it’s Pavel.” They said. Jim frowned and averted her eyes.  
“Okay…”  
When Mrs MacDougal finally stopped for a moment, she waved at the small group, of about 40 people, and the prefect spoke loudly and lively.  
“Right guys follow me” the prefect said, and as if by magic, the doors behind them opened, but it wasn’t magic it was electricity, a sensor on the door.

* * *

He didn’t talk until they’d walked far enough down the corridor, to the point where Mrs MacDougal’s echoing voice finally vanished. Then he started talking.  
“I’m supposed to give you folks a tour, welcome to the Red house. I’m Tyler the prefect, and I will nark on you. The headmaster gives me money every time I do, given there’s proof. History lesson 1, this entire school exists because of our current headmaster, so have some respect. History lesson 2, the headmaster originally tried to make enough houses for every colour of the rainbow, he was hitting diversity from more of a gay angle rather than alien, but then he found out that was way too many houses, so our schools house’s colours are now red, orange, yellow and green. The other houses tend to pick on green, but thats just because we’re jealous they got the good colour. If you go outside wearing our house’s colour you’re going to look like a real neon bitch. I f**ked John Harrison in that room” he points to a room labeled library.  
“Is there anytime we need to wear our house colours?” Pavel asked.  
“Sports day, spelling bees and quizzes. Our houses don’t matter the rest of time, despite teachers trying to encourage some friendly competitiveness between us. We do get house points, at the end of each week the winner of the individual week get some sweets or a treat brought to their form. Sometimes its food, sometimes it’s a film thats just been released, you know something you’d want. At the end of the year the house with the most gets 5 school days to take off during the year. A lot of folks just use this to extend their half term holidays, others use them as mental health days, or for times they’ve forgot to do their homework. The year before yellow won, most of their group saved their days until the end of the year and then had a 3 day summer holiday party before they left.” Tyler points to another room labelled ‘secret library.’   
“Made out with Galia Eric in that room.”  
“Why is it called the secret library?” Trisha a girl with a blonde pony tail sharply pulled back asked. Since Spock had watched them all stand up he had memorised their names.  
“It’s just to let you know that those books are known for being racist, or sexist anything along that line. It’s more of a hey, maybe don’t say you want a relationship like ‘Lolita’, thats from the secret library so you probably haven’t understood it Christina. We got ‘Lolita’ and ‘Mein Kampf’ stored at the back, below it is ’50 shades of grey’ I’m telling you now, the librarians terrible, don’t mention it to the librarian though, she’ll take your guts out. Top tip if you’re going to read ‘Mein Kampf’ do it in the library and don’t take it out. The teachers will watch you for days unless you’re a history student. Hot tip: judge on the book, but research an author before you give them your heart. I’ve recently secretly moved a book from the library into the secret library.”  
“Why?”  
“I came in here a young whippersnapper alone and found a friend in a book. I researched the author and it all looked clear, they even appeared to support the ‘gays’, but it was a lie. God I purchased so much merchandise. The author has every opportunity to educate themselves. My bezzie Alexia has never done anything to speak over the abuse suffered by women, but now her words are just one more excuse for a transphobe to hold up. Broke my heart. F**k her.” He pulls his hair back and then shrugs “thats just how learning to live begins. Sometimes growing up is about allowing fandoms to die, it’s nice to visit them occasionally but if the artist of your work turns out to be evil, supporting a fandom even when they’ve stopped publishing work is supporting them. You’ve got to learn that it’s okay to mistake evil people for good. Countless people, even countries have done it. Save things that are dear to your heart but put it in a box for when your down, so you remember that, and move on. There are new creators around every corner looking for love, and deserving of it. It’s bit different when the creators are already dead or if it had more than one creator, but if not you’ve really just got to let it go.” Spock, had no idea what Tyler was talking about. He had enjoyed many works before but the term ‘fandom’ was completely lost on him. Then Tyler shrugged with a grin.  
“If you don’t you’ll be Frozen.”

Tyler pointed to the right, and to the left, sometimes pointing at walls, sometimes pointing at doors.  
“This whole hallways full of extra curricula's, the signs are self explanatory” Tyler points to the computer room “those all run ‘doom’. Lost my virginity under those desks.”  
“Oh for gods sake” Christine a short girl with grey dyed hair, a fringe at the front and pony tail at the back with teeth that overlapped in a cute way said “do we need to-”  
“Child, it is absolutely necessary you know what rooms I’ve made out in” Tyler points to the next room labelled music room “you do not want to know what I’ve done with some of those drumsticks.”  
“Are all the prefects as slutty as you?” Christine asked.  
“I don’t know, are all you bitches slut shamers?”  
“Where’s our dorm?” Pavel asked “my bags kind of heavy .”  
“The other side of school. Probably should have gone there first, but I need y’all to listen to my tour first.” The group groaned.


	5. The chaotic boy who won’t shut up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER: Mentions of a r*pe alarm, but its a joke, about alarms.  
> Really just a mention, and they later refer to it as 'personal alarm.'

The chaotic boy who won’t shut up  
Chapter 5

Have you ever walked into a fancy house you had to pay to visit? There’s always those weird spiky plants on chairs, and urgent messages saying ‘do not sit’, as if you don’t have the common sense to knock the plant on the floor before sitting down. The common room reminded Spock of that. Red walls, seats everywhere with carved wooden legs, and big puffed cushions. To the left of the room 3 sofas faced each other around a coffee table on a rug. They looked out of a window, which on this second floor gave a view across the field, up to the beginnings of the not too distant forest. 

The right side of the room had another dark red rug, with a table on it low to the ground, cushions on the floor around it. Elsewhere around the room, snuggly hidden were several other tables, with cushioned chairs. Tyler walked to the wall nearest the door they had just entered and tapped the cabinet with the sink.

“This is the drinks station, you can drink all the water from the tap, use the kettle, and any of the teas” He opens a mini-fridge below the table where several different types of milk were stored “milks all good, but if you see sweets they belong to someone. Do not eat the sweets. And clear up after yourself, or I will beat your arse. I mean, report you, and you will be on cleaning duty for a week. That means you get to clean the toilet. If you refuse the punishment you get expelled.” 

“Upstairs belongs to the elder years, don’t go up there, it’s mostly just dorms” he said pointing to a small twirly stairs next to the window. They walked through a door on the right side of the room. It was stacked with a bookcases, and several dozen bean bags.

“This is the bean bag zone. A lot of people come in here when they get cramps, apparently. It might have something to do with the real fire, or the way the bean bags eat you. First years are not allowed to touch the fire. You gotta get your fire license first. Might seem annoying but apparently a few years ago some kid set himself on fire, which personally, I don’t know how you’d even manage - a burn sure, your whole face on fire? Ridiculous. Don’t put anything near the fire. I’d say flammable, but y’all dumbass’s so don’t put anything near it. Especially illegal alcohol. Alcohols not allowed on site, it’s the one thing me and the other prefects have agreed not to tattle on, but if I catch you puking anywhere in the common rooms I’m going to throw you out a window.” Tyler said and they walked into the next room. Tyler, was a confusing guy, was he serious? He was threatening yet also, he smiled. Smile means happy, and friendly, Spock thought. 

“This room is split in to 14 mini segments it’s a quiet zone. Whatever you do in their you gotta be quiet. Some folks just need a moment alone introverts and all, or want to do their homework in peace. Do not masturbate in the segments. I need one room I know I can lay down in, without getting gunk on me. My own beds no good because thats where I masturbate. Jokes! Thats where I f*ck.”

“Is there… a room to do that then? The set wank room?” One boy asked, and he was pushed around by the blokes around him laughing.

“The fucking toilet, whats your name?” Tyler asked.

“Scotty.”

“It’s wanker now. Wi-fi reaches the toilet, don’t wank in the showers. Last year I took my money into my own hands and started DNA testing the shower, will I ever recover? No. But now I can shower in peace, and if someone has a complaint I have money and DNA tests I will freely give. Anyway, enough about wankers. I’ve made out with someone in each segment.” He points back out the door, the way they came from “down that hallway is all of your dorms. Have fun finding yours.”

There were six, huge bedrooms, each room had a bit of paper stuck to it. Spock searched each room for his name but couldn’t find it, he and Pavel carried their bags with a bunch of other kids to the end of the hallway. Where Spock at last found his room. The room was blue. The floor wooden, and the single bed frames silver. Spock walked to the end of the room, seeing the bed he wanted immediately at the end, close to the large window. Pavel followed and put their bag on the bed opposite him. Pavel frowned as they put their bag on their bed.

“Is this okay?” Pavel asked him and glanced towards the others, what from appearances alone looked like 4 boys, and 3 other girls “or like are we dividing the room between girls and boys and.. non-binary… are any of you non-binary?”

“I’m agendered” said a person who appeared asian short black hair, and big circular glasses “although I just use he/him pronouns.”

“Cool, I’m Pavel, what’s your name?”

“Hikaru. I heard someone call you Moriarty what’s that about?” Pavel put his head back and sighed.

“A mistake. I’m sorry I forgot my name. My name is Pavel, please I just panicked.”

“I wondered how the dorms were going to be split” Nyota, with hair cropped in a wavy bob, and hooped silver earrings said as she placed her bag on the bed next to Spock’s “not to sound sexist but I’m a little worried that someone who doesn’t have tits might stare at mine in my sleep, I mean, a lot of the teenage boys I’ve been around are just the worst. Not to accuse any of you anything but I doubt everyone in this school’s an angel, it’s mathematically impossible.”

“I get what you mean” Pavel nodded.

“Well” Sulu said “what if someone stares at my dick while I’m sleeping?”

“Thats not the same, I mean, its always under covers, it’s not like your duvets going to outline your dick.” Nyota said, Sulu raised his eyebrows and his eyes darted to Spock, and the boy on the bed next to him. The boy next to him was Charlie, a large sized boy with brown hair and a look of confusion. On the other side of Charlie was a girl with blonde hair called Janice with a buzzcut and lightening shapes in her hair. She seemed amused by the conversation, but didn’t look like she agreed. On the bed beside Nyota close to the dorm door, was Christine, the girl who had called Tyler a slut. She was opposite Charlie. It was during the moment of awkward looking about that Tyler bursted into their dorm room.

“Oh don’t tell me you fucked someone in this bed too” Christine immediately yelled.

“I did not fuck anyone in that bed. But I think pissy Jax slept there last year so good luck with that.” Tyler said hands firmly on his hips.

“Oh you must be joking? Someone swap with me, Janice?”

“Why? You sleep in Jax’s piss, piss girl.” Janice said.

“I’m sure it got washed” Tyler said rolling his eyes, then he shook his head in Nyota’s direction.

“Have you all found your privacy barriers?” Tyler asked.

“The what?” Nyota asked.

“I’m about to save your life.” Tyler said walking over to her “just slide your hand down over that black thing behind you.” 

Nyota turned behind her. There was a 1cm wide, 20cm long black stick, outlined by silver metal on the wall. 30cm to the right of it was a small square black box. Nyota waved her hand over it, and down from the ceiling fell a black curtain. There was one of these sticks behind all of their beds. The ends of the curtain stuck to a silver metal line that went around the whole of the outside of the bed leaving enough room for her legs.

“Neat” Nyota said from inside her curtain.

“Pretty cool right? Watch this” Tyler said and pushed the black curtain, almost immediately a quiet, but loud enough to be easily heard beeping began, almost like the ringing of a phone.

“Thats the rape alarm. The goto rule is, if the curtains are down, you’re not allowed to clown, also you gotta yell at them to get up. Except me of course I’ve got this” Tyler said and pulled out a card and waved it next to the silver box. The curtain began to raise by itself and the alarm cut off.

“My brother goes here” Janice said “he said it was to stop kids dragging the mattresses on to the roof whilst they were asleep.”

“You say, de-pranker, I say rape alarm, tomato tomatoe.” Tyler shrugged with a grin.

“Why is there an alarm?” Nyota asked.

“It’s mostly incase someone gets stuck in their curtain, or they’re having a medical emergency. Surprisingly getting tangled and sucked up into the curtain happens more often than you’d think. Honestly theres nothing wrong with having some hand pulled curtains but then the rooms don’t look minimalistic y’know? If you think theres an issue with someone, like you can hear them breathing real funny and they won’t respond you just run upstairs and find a prefect. However I’ve adjusted that rule, you put up someone else's curtains, you set of the rape alarm, then you get me. Then I’ll help your friend while a teacher is already on the way.”

“How long do the teachers take to respond?” Spock asked.

“They - nice hat kid” Tyler said with a slowing grin, and then a blink “been meaning to say that the whole tour. Shit what was I saying? If your personal alarm stays on for more than 30 seconds, it starts getting louder, after two minutes you’ll have a teacher come in. Last year, the third years drew up this really elaborate murder prank and set it off at 3 in the morning, turns out those pranks aren’t as funny as you’d think because apparently the teachers will straight up bring a stun-gun into your room, and I’m pretty sure that shits illegal.”

“You set of an alarm and think its bad the teacher would come to your rescue with a stun-gun?” Nyota asked

“Well… whatever. You folks all good now? Can I go catch up with my friends. Oh, and just so you know. There’s no bell you just have to manage yourself. You’ve probably all got your timetables already, the next thing you go to is lunch, which is in an hour or so, and then you will have to head to your last two lessons. For lunch, just go back to where you came from.” Tyler said and then left. Spock took a deep breath in, this was a lot of good news, but the personal alarms seemed a bit much, still given his history with classmates, at least he’d be able to sleep peacefully, he had already been planning to go find somewhere else to sleep like on the roof for a week or so before he made the brake from school. The bed was now a better option.

“I’ve got no idea how we got here” Pavel sighed “let alone finding the lunch room.”

“Me neither” Charlie said “but at least I know every room Tyler’s fucked in.”

Note:

Listen most people have direct hair cuts when their a kid. The reason for Janice Rands long elaborate hair is because she used to shave it off all the time because punk, but later she learns to be a gentle punk and love pink without fear. Nyota hair is similar. Chapels is similar. Was thinking about giving sulu long hair but he can stick with short.... leaves a lot of wiggle room incase I think of something cool to do with it.


	6. Is it too late to casually remove this hat without anyone bullying me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First english lesson, and a stop be the cafeteria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No triggers. Well, none I think. I'll try to mention in the notes when one of my characters starts being especially rude.

Chapter 6  
They huddled like lost orphans down the corridor. Spock stuck with Janice and Nyota who were in the same English class as him, around them the rest of the first years scurrying about. Whispers flying past their ears with the occasional yell.  
“Is it this way?”  
“I don’t think it’s near the libraries.”  
“Isn’t it outside?”  
It was upstairs, directly above the library. Upstairs was different, lighter fresher. Not only did it smell a lot less like farts, it smelt like fresh mint. Fresh mint grew in pots outside every door, down the hallway that seemed to go and on for miles, and it was at a particularly tall mint, the group turned and walked into the classroom.

They sat and waited for ages. Had Spock not been so tired he would’ve begun to worry he was in the wrong class. The bags beneath his eyes were drooping and he found himself wishing he had chosen to have caffeine for lunch. The teacher floated into the room, he was sitting on a wheel chair, designed to give him height. It almost looked like he was leaning against a desk.  
“Good afternoon class I’m Mr Calbot. Nice to meet you all. Lets start with a good introduction, who here likes English? Raise your hand.” He raised his eyes, a friendly look, a few raised hands. Spock's own up.  
“Oh, well who here likes stories, TV films, and games?” He asked. The rest of the class raise their hand except for three people. The teacher gives a firm look to the three.  
“So lets try this again, who likes language?” All but three raise their hand.  
“I’m glad to hear it! You, what’s your name?” He asks pointing to the first boy who hadn’t raised his hand.  
“Gary.”  
“Gary what do you do in your spare time?”  
“PSP” Gary said, the teacher sighed.  
“Are you a little shy?”  
“No” Gary said annoyed “I just don’t like english.”  
“What language do you like?”  
“I don’t like english.”  
“What language do you prefer? Do you speak more than one?”  
“No.”  
“Okay. What about you? Are you shy?” The teacher asked pointing to another boy. The boy nodded, he had black hair covering his face and badly painted nails.  
“Thats okay. What about you, are you shy?” He asked pointing to the last girl.  
“No, I’m Jackie and I think English lessons are pointless.” She announced, like she was prepared to fight for her freedom, like what she said was a mighty speech and not her own foolery.  
“Jackie what do you do in your free time?” Mr Calbot asks with a friendly shake of his head to invite conversation.  
“I watch youtube videos and music.” She said.  
The teacher sighed “well it’s to be expected. Our administration often makes mistakes and I try to find them as soon as possible. Joe, Jackie, I think the administration has made a mistake on your time table. Come on, down here.” He said scribbling on to a piece of paper. Joe and Jackie looked at him, fear on their faces.  
“Are we being expelled?” Joe asked.  
“No, I’m teaching a class who will get A grades, and A stars. You’re aiming for C’s aren’t you?” The boys nodded and the teacher shrugged, “wrong class.” As the boys left the teacher turned back to them.  
“On each of your desks is a copy of this poem - with basic annotations. Before we can annotate we must read. Would anyone like to read for the class? There’s a house point in it for you.” Spock did not put up his hand.

* * *  
He could smell it before he had even entered the room. A smell so divine - so heavenly that his eyes watered, and his mouth salivated. Deep down the fear of eating 3 school meals a day vanished with the changing of the tides and as he gazed upon the dinner options, he felt at peace. Tucked away beneath a glass screen, within hands reach sat 5 bulky meals. Vegan fresh green pea and lemon pesto pasta, vegetarian egg fried rice with vegetable stir-fry, kosher butternut squash soup, omnivores bolognese and another diet specialised meal. 

Spock was vegetarian, he didn’t mind the occasional cheese or egg so it was a tough choice but the pasta won, the white rimmed bowl finding its way to his hands, to rest upon the white tray. His legs took him past the refrigerated section and he found a fancy glass bottle of cola, from a brand he’d never seen before. The pudding choices were small but just as delightful. Fruit salad with vegan ice cream? Or chocolate cake? He was won over by the ice-cream and took the fruit salad of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and kiwi.

The cafeteria was still buzzing with people but it was less chaotic than that morning, without the teachers, the stage, luggage or the air of chaos, the room seemed comfortably big. His dorm had chosen to sit together, there was space for him and it seemed like a good place to sit, despite the nerves he felt, he sat down with Nyota by his side, Hikaru and Janice across from him, and Pavel at the end of the table closest to him. Charlie and Christine were at the opposite end of table, too hard to see and talk to from Spock’s position.  
“Are you vegan?” Hikaru asked excitedly noticing their twin meals.  
“No” Spock said “but I am vegetarian.”  
“I went vegan last year, I think that’s why my parents sent me here, they don’t want to cook for me.” He gave a grin showing a missing tooth between his front and canines. Spock tried the first bite of his meal.  
“Oh no, how awful…” Spock said, because he didn’t know what else to say “but at least they’ve got really nice vegan meals here.”  
“I’d say, all I eat at home is peanut butter and rice. I’m going to have to call back home later and pretend to be pissed and hope my parents don’t offer to bring me home.” Hikaru said. He had a point. This meal was pretty good even by his peculiar taste buds. He wasn’t planning on sticking around the school because was fairly certain most people hadn’t picked up on the fact that he was obviously not human. Thanks to the hat that he had managed to keep stuck on his head. He himself had stopped and stared at several humans already upon seeing their eyebrows, plucked clean, or into straight circles or ovals. Pretty embarrassing for him to do, but it only took a second for him to decide if they were human. Humans went on the obvious tell tale signs such as the sight of ears or eyebrows to tell species apart, and his ears were covered. His eyebrows only partially, yet he wasn’t sure that they were the giveaway he had initially assume they were. Or maybe the humans here just thought he was a cool vulcan because he was wearing a big ass sparkly hat.  
“Did you guys know spaghetti was invented in Russia?” Pavel asked messily slurping spaghetti that splattered across his own face. Spock frowned.  
“Was it?”  
“Yes.”  
“That shits from italy ain’t it?” Hikaru asked.  
“No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other notes: Might have been hungry while deciding what to make the cafeteria serve. It would have been just as easy to make it serve just - the worst food imaginable. Alas! If only I were not hungry this chapter would be so much funnier.


	7. A Phone Call Home

Chapter 7  
Walking into the common room that evening was like walking into a busy pub, but without the rampant alcoholism, old fat men and feeling of someone in the vicinity leering at him, or about to stab him. Peoples voices were low to medium, and he felt comfortable enough to make himself a strawberry tea. There was still a question he had to answer though, as he waited watching the glass kettle bubble his hot water, where would he sit? His dorm with the others? There was no wi-fi in there and he needed to check in with his Mom. This room was busy and he didn’t want to take a call in front of anyone, besides the seats were almost all filled. The bean bag room? The segments? At least the segments should be quiet.

Spock took his tea in hand and walked to the segments, he didn’t have much hope for it, but he decided it was worth a shot. The second he stepped past the archway he could feel the difference. Voices were quieter some completely muted, the atmosphere in this room was more subtle, there was still the occasional giggle but it was much more to Spock’s taste. It did however seem almost empty in comparison, perhaps because Tyler had said he’d made-out with someone in each room. Spock pushed open a dark curtain by the far end of the wall. It had the added bonus of having it’s own large window, and a fancy windowsill. Half windowsill, half seat with embroidered fat pillows. A gentle blue light flickered on over head as he walked in. Looking up he spotted the lights, one over each segment, three were on. So that’s how he’d find out if someone was in them without walking straight into another person. The segments were fairly large, 3 meters long, and 2 meters wide. Beans bags on the floors rug, a pile of books in the corner, a couple of board games and a small table that was close to the floor, so you could use it while sitting on bean bags.

The window pointed across the field towards greenhouses and farther in the distance was farm land, golden fields reflected the sun towards him. He avoided the bean bags and placed his tea on the large window-sill. He knocked off his shoes and put his feet up, plugging in his headphones he video called his Mother. It rang three times before Amanda picked up almost dropping the phone as she did so.  
“Spock! Are you okay? How was your first day?” She asks a cross between worried and excited.  
“Awful come pick me up.”  
Amanda pauses and sighs “how was it actually.”  
“Alright I guess” Spock shrugged.  
“What? Really? Thats great.” Amanda said.  
“I’ve been wearing this hat all day. I think many of the people I’ve spoken to have had the wrong assumptions about me.”  
“What assumption.”  
“I don’t think they’ve picked up on my non-human traits.”  
“Oh. Well I guess that could really change things.” Amanda said.  
“Indeed. If I die, it is of course all your fault.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Did you have any classes?” Amanda asked.  
“Yes, I had an English lesson, it was a very strange experience to have a human talk it all through.”  
“Did you learn anything?”  
“I learnt a lot about the meanings in a poem. He gave out printed sheets of paper which is very wasteful, it had all the writing he was talking about on it. He also wrote on an old fashioned white board a lot.”  
“Aren’t they cute?” Amanda grinned.  
“…I do not know if they are cute, but they are hard to read.”  
“Awh. I’m sure they must be other dyslexic students at school, he must have arranged something for them.”  
“Maybe but I won’t ask.”  
“Please it is logical to ask.” Damn! Hit with the logic. Spock sighed.  
“Did your teacher go around the room and make you say your name and things you like?”  
“Why?” Spock asked  
“Thats a basic introduction lesson. It happens at the beginning of every new class.”  
“That sounds like a bad dating game” Spock shook his head.  
“Oh, well okay. You know they do that in normal human schools.”  
“Weird.”  
“How do you know what a dating game is anyway?” Amanda asked. Spock raised his eyebrows in fear.  
“Adverts” he settled with.   
“Uh huh? I see.” Amanda said his gaze not leaving him.   
“I should probably go.”   
“Have you got plans for the rest of the night? Have they got a game night going on?”  
“No. I’m doing english homework” Spock said “I don’t see how it’s homework though, because I’m not home.”  
“Ohf, Mr Attitude coming through.”  
“It’s illogical to call it homework.”  
“Well I guess you’ve got a point. Are you doing anything else? Anything fun?”  
“I guess I could try and find out where the bathrooms are.” Spock said thoughtfully.  
“You don’t know yet?”  
“Well, I know where my house’s prefect’s made out, but no, I don’t know where the bathrooms are, so I should probably figure that out before I need to go for my 1am bathroom piss.”  
“That’s very specific Spock.”  
“Is that a first year looking for the toilets?” Tyler’s voice boomed out from a segment far away from him. Spock jumped and removed one earbud.  
“Yes?” Spock said loudly back..  
“They’re at the bottom of your dorm hallway.” Tyler yelled.  
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”   
“You're welcome” the voice said and then disappeared.  
“Never mind, I’ve figured it out.”  
“Shouldn’t you have found that first?” Amanda asked.  
“I haven’t needed to use the bathroom.  
“How has your day been?” Spock asked.  
“Well, after I dropped you off I went to visit your grandmother and we talked about fruit cake for several hours, and ate a lot of it for dinner.”  
“I’m just grateful to be in school” Spock shrugged.  
“Did you get for dinner?” Amanda asked.  
“I had pea pasta with fruit and ice-cream.”  
“That sounds healthy, not sure about the ice-cream.”  
“I can eat lactose.”  
“Yeah” Amanda squinted but I don’t think you should eat a lot of it. I would hate for you to have a medical emergency while I’m away.”  
Spock rolled his eyes “fine I’ll lay off the ice-cream.”  
“Thank-you. Do you think you’ll be okay sleeping there over night?”  
“I think I could wait until morning until deciding, the dorms here are nice. Did you know all beds have rape alarms attached to them?”  
“Rape alarms? No! Honey” Amanda said completely aghast “those aren’t rape alarms those are to stop kids dragging sleeping people onto the roof and locking them up there while they’re asleep. It’s happened 8 times apparently. People really like pranks in that school.”  
“My tour guide was very thorough in all the other uses of the alarms.”  
“You aren’t sharing a dorm with that one are you?” Amanda asked.  
“No.”  
“Mmm. Anyway I must be going now. Your father says hi-”  
“No he doesn’t.”  
“He says it in his heart, without words, or emotion, or a physical reaction.”  
“So he doesn’t say it.”  
“He says I love you.” Amanda said wide eyed as though the whites of her eyes might be able to physically push the words in to Spock’s mind.  
“I’d have a heart attack if he did..”  
“Yeah” Amanda sighed “me too. I love you.” Spock nodded it was the best way he could say it back.  
“Bye” Spock said and as he raised his hand to mean the LLAP.  
“Bye” Amanda waved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I forgot the word for the LLAP hand gesture but - you know what I mean, lets not get all fancy. 
> 
> Also an explanation If I misgendered spock in any of the previous chapters - in my first draft I was going to have transwoman Spock but then I was like. I'll just put more female characters in since thats what I want. I wanted trans-Spock but I couldn't decide if he should be a guy or a girl. I'm using Crtl F to check my pronouns now but if you ever see that pop up in my story - I'm not evil! I just missed it when I was proof-writing. I think the same applies for other characters? Even cis ones. I know for sure Christine was going to be a random guy oc before... and I think Janice was too.... actually I'm pretty sure I changed them all (sweating) I've gender swapped my whole first draft. So anyway, if that happens let me know so I can correct it.   
> I've made a lot of unnecessary work for myself here.


	8. Shower Hazard

Chapter 8

Lessons began at 9. Breakfast began at 8. Spock had set his alarm to ring at 8:00, incase he didn’t wake up naturally. He usually only needed between 6 to 8 hours of sleep. Often only needing 6 hours if he didn’t need to go into the academy. Today he woke up at 7:30. He stayed in bed for another 15 minutes before groggily sitting up (also normal). He meditated lightly before picking up his bag and fresh clothes and heading to the shower.

There was a queue, it was a queue of 1 other person, so the wait wouldn’t be long. The other boy in the queue was a mess. His long dark brown hair knotted into a bun, glasses on wonky, with dry crispy drool covering the side of his face. Fascinating… He thought it was kind of cute. Like a sleepy Sehlat. One of the shower room doors open, and Jim Kirk emerged with a cloud of steam following him out the wide cubical. He was wearing a bright yellow shirt, with a small bumble-bee on the top corner of it. He had bright blue jeans that were rolled just above his ankles and white canvas shoes.  
“Hello Spock!” He said cheerily.  
“Morning” Spock said no where near ready to be friendly.  
“The water pressure in this place is to die for” Jim said with a grin as he lightly rubbed his blond hair with a towel and headed towards the hair dryers, they blasted on so that Spock’s reply was drowned out. Spock cleaned up in the showers and finished his outfit that day with a shiny hat.

Breakfast was almost too wholesome, yogurt with fruit and oats, with toast and jam. Spock was pleasantly surprised to find they did serve tea, coffee and juice in the morning. He hadn’t been able to get any last night, and had assumed if he wanted any he was going to have to make it for himself on a daily basis. He picked up a small coffee, with almond milk. Someone behind him was complaining.  
“Why can’t I get a pot of coffee?”  
“You’re not having that much caffeine, if you want a second cup of coffee you have to line up again, or go to your form room.”  
“Can I take a cup of coffee, and a pot of tea?”  
“Yes.”  
“I’m taking the juice too.”  
“I physically can’t stop you.” A tired caterer said. If Spock ever drunk that much he half thought he’d piss himself to death. Spock took his seat at the same table where he had sat the day before, opposite Hikaru. Nyota was there slowly drinking her juice and reading something on her phone.  
“Hey” Nyota nodded as Spock sat down. Spock nodded. Pavel joined the table, their coffee, teapot and juice rattling on a tray, their hair a mess and clothes crinkled.  
“Nyota, what time were you getting up zhis morning? What waz that 2am?” Pavel asked.  
“It was quarter to seven. I got dressed properly and had a shower. Did you get up 5 seconds ago?” Nyota asked sharply.  
“Mmm, mmm” Pavel said shaking their head in a circle both to mean yes, and to mean no “breakfast is zhe most important meal of the day, if there’s time I can have a shower later. If not I can just go to class.” Pavel shrugged.  
“But Pavel!” Hikaru said thoroughly disappointed “that’s mean.”  
“Mean” Pavel asked confused “how?”  
“People won’t be able to unsmell you later!” Hikaru said.  
“Are you saying I smell?” Pavel challenged.  
“I’d smell if I didn’t have a shower. That’s all I’m saying” Hikaru said scooping out a spoonful of his yogurt.  
“Listen” Pavel said taking a sip of coffee “I just forgot to set me alarm.” Pavel put the tea down and took a sip of the coffee “I’ll remember to set it for the rest of the year” Pavel said, and exchanged the coffee for the juice. Pavel gulped all the orange juice.  
“Okay. I guess thats fine. Sorry, I’m just in a mood.” Hikaru said “can I tell you all something really gross I saw… heard? I’ve got to get it out my system.”  
“How gross?” Spock asked.  
“Super.”  
“I don’t want to know then” Spock said and continued on with his breakfast.  
“I went to take a shower… and while I was there, I heard someone… wanking… and doing it very noisily as well. They were having several kinds of blasts.” Hikaru said. Although Spock wasn’t exactly shy to biology and had made his way through a certain ancient and forbidden text stored in part of the old Vulcan library, that he had had to crawl through a vent to get to, he had only recently looked up the word ‘wanking’ after his mother suggested some young teen shows that were popular so he could understand references to them, and update his use of slang. He regretted looking up the word wanking, as it led to him looking up another word, which led to him learning something new about humans, he wished he could unknow. Spock’s face visually showed his disgust, his mouth opening to gape. His face expressed emotion he personally didn’t even know he could express. His breakfast that had originally sparkled appetisingly now seemed grey and inedible. Nyota grimaced.  
“They were unbelievably noisy about it” Hikaru said, making eye contact, Spock closed his mouth as he quickly remembered his vulcan mantra.  
“Hikaru! Thats too gross” Nyota yelped.  
“How do y’think I feel, I was in the shower next to them” Hikaru said loudly with pain reflected in his voice.  
“Oof” Pavel said “I usually stick with the boys bathrooms, but you know what Hikaru, you’ve convinced me otherwise.  
“Don’t wank in them” Nyota said sternly. Pavel grinned, fruit stuck between their teeth.  
“I wasn’t going to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> about the sehlat I was going to have Spock bring into school, I decided that it was too big and dangerous to be allowed around humans lmao. Humans are allowed to bring pets like dogs and cats but y'know what I think a bear might make the head teacher say - hold up. 
> 
> I could sneak it in there. I'll add the sehlat it if I get. any. comments asking. I like comments! Feed me those comments words. Or just through emoji's at me. Let me know what your thinking so far. Ask me to stuff a sehlat into a small dorm room and I'll do. and I'll just hope that doesn't create any plot holes like 'why doesn't I-Chaya simply eat them' later.


	9. What Lesson is this?

Chapter 9

The chemistry room was half a semi-circle. They sat in chairs in the curve and the teacher stood on the other side of the room holding a piece of chalk. There was no technology in the room. Phones were banned and off. The teacher, Mrs MacDougal, wore a pointed hat and had on a velvety green dress.  
“Who here has ever set off a bomb?” Mrs MacDougal asked in that thick lush accent, and Spock couldn’t help thinking that he wouldn't mind if she set of a bomb on him. He was then horrified by this thought, for multiple reasons, but one of the five in particular reasons was that he begged his father (successfully) to brake of an engagement to T’pring because he was gay. 

Jim Kirk who sat behind a desk situated some steps above Spock raised his hand.  
“Fantastic and what type of bomb did you set of?”  
“Coke and mentos.”  
“I wouldn’t typically call that a bomb. Why would you call it a bomb, and how did you proceed with the experiment?” Mrs MacDougal asked.  
“My step-father’s a bit of a bitch and he asked me to clean his car. So instead I spent two hours putting mento’s in freezer bags and taping them to the roof of the car. I attached the bags to fishing wire going out the car, and filled the bottom half with coke. Then, when my dear old step father returned to see my work, I pulled the string, and all of the windows exploded out in a sweet sticky mess. Which wasn’t what I thought would happen, but it was super cool.” Jim nodded. Spock frowned. What?  
“That must have been a very expensive prank.”  
“Nah. We just had that much coke and mento’s laying around. Not half as expensive as what I did next.”  
“I don’t think I want to know. Coke and mento’s. A simple chemical reaction, but today, we’re looking at fire. Specifically a type found in fireworks, does anyone know what you find in fireworks?”


	10. Early Days Slumber Parties

Chapter 10

That evening after dinner Spock was sitting on his bed flicking through some books on his tablet while he waited for the others to go to sleep, so he could mediate.  
“Has anyone seen Charlie?” Christine asked as she painted her nails. Hikaru watched absorbed, a vintage game cube with cowboy sounds coming from it in his hands.  
“Not since this morning” Hikaru said, his eyes on the nail varnish.   
“Why?” Nyota asked and gave a wink to her neighbour “you like him?”  
“No hun, he was snoring and I wasn’t fond. I’m a snorer myself so I brought some extra snore blockers with me. I thought I’d give him them so I could get a decent sleep.”  
“You snore?” Nyota grinned with a paperback book and tea in hand “you’re far too pretty for that.”  
Christine smiled “well I’d agree, but unfortunately thats not how it works.”  
“Now that you mention it I did hear a rumble last night” Nyota said thoughtfully “it went right through my ear plugs.”  
“You brought ear plugs? I wish I’d done that, I thought I’d be the loudest one snoring though” Christine sighed. Spock hadn’t heard a rumble, he had decided since his bed was alarmed he was safe to use his ear plugs which seemed to have worked.  
“…can you do mine?” Hikaru finely asks nervously. Christine grinned and patted the bottom of her bed.  
“Come choose a colour.” Christine said, Hikaru grinned moving across to her bed. Pavel entered the room wearing baggy pants and an oversized t-shirt. Pavel gave a dancers twirl whilst walking towards their bed.  
“I am clean” Pavel announced proudly.  
“Thank you for your basic hygiene.” Hikaru said.  
“You have thoroughly shamed me into looking after myself. But it’s for the best so no hard feelings.” Pavel wafted the words away.  
“Maybe Charlie found that vending machine” Nyota said “and it made him so sad he went home.”  
“Why would a vending machine make him sad?” Hikaru asked.  
“The one covered in eating-disorder posters, and suicide hotlines” Nyota said with a roll of her eyes.  
“Oh that one. Yeah, thats believable” Hikaru said picking up several types of green nail varnish “I can’t believe thats even a thing.”  
“I don’t even know where it is. It’s so sad because I’d love a biscuit, I usually eat something at night. I like a treat before I sleep.” Nyota says “also does anyone know where the gym is?”  
“Yeah. I found it, you know, because I work out a lot” Christine said and gave a flex of her arms, and they were muscular arms, “but apparently we’re not allowed to use the gym until we’ve had our first P.E lesson anyway.”  
Nyota glanced at her phone “not until Wednesday? That’s my streak ruined.”  
“We could go for a run around the field in the morning if you want.” Christine suggested.  
Nyota shrugged “I won’t be wearing my makeup up at that time.”  
“What times that?”  
“Quarter past six.”  
“Are you sure you don’t mean, half past six?” Christine suggested.  
“Alright, I could do that” Nyota nodded “anyone else want to join us, Hikaru?”  
“Not this week.”  
“Spock?”  
“I don’t exercise” he said, and it was true.  
“If you add exercise to your routine it’ll help you study.” Nyota encouraged with one of her beautiful smiles. Spock thought hard, he really, really, really, really didn’t want to do that. But was this some sort of human friend making ritual? He didn’t care for friends, but he did care if one his dorm-mates were going to stab him in his sleep, and apparently, that was something a “friend” didn’t do. Spock grimaced audibly.  
“Sure, I guess I can add exercise to my routine this year. Let me just change my alarm to 6:30” Spock said and his katra weeped.  
“Do you exercise with your hat on?” Hikaru asked. Spock pulled his hat further over his head.  
“Yeah.” Spock said.  
“Do you sleep with it.” Hikaru asked. Spock took a deep breath.  
“Yes” he said, because he did sleep within a hands reach of his hat.  
“Are you fucking bullying him?” Christine asked with a frown, as she cracked open a nail varnish for Hikaru’s nails.  
“I was just wondering! It’s a nice hat.”  
“You’re fucking jealous.” Spock said. A bold use of a swear word, and not at all guaranteed to work.  
Hikaru’s eyes go wide “I, yeah, yeah I guess I am.”  
“You can’t have it” Spock says and goes back to reading his book.  
“I’m glad you’re going to come anyway, I’ve never had a group of friends to work-out with Pavel what about you, want to join?”  
“I’ll exercize after I have my firzt heart attack” Pavel said taking a swig from a coca-cola bottle. Nyota gasped.  
“You found the vending machine!”  
“It took me forty-five minutes and six flights of stairs, but yeah, I found it.”  
“Have you got any chocolate?” Nyota asked.  
“I did stock up - because it turns out, that headmaster guy really wasn’t joking about all those eating disorder posters, and theres also like pictures of starving people on it, and like Tarus posters, it’s really just the worst. I feel like it should be a crime.”  
“I’d just take all the posters off” Christine said.  
“You can’t there’s like, laminated glass over zem.”  
“I’d just draw all the skinny people to look fat.”  
“I feel like thats against the rules” Pavel squinted “but I’d appreciate it. Anyway I got ‘Marshmallows’, ‘biscuits’, ‘chocolate’, cookies, and a whole bunch of ‘honey comb' bars”.  
“Can I have a cookie?” Nyota asked.  
“Sure” Pavel said.  
“Can I have some honeycomb?” Hikaru asked wide eyed.  
“Yeah, they aren’t vegan though.”  
“I’m allowed a treat.” He said and Pavel handed over the crunchy bar.  
“Can I get some chocolate please?” Christine asked, and was given.  
“What about you Spock?” Pavel asked with a tilt of his head.  
“I’m good, thank you.”  
“What? No you’ve got to take one, choose or I’ll give you one at random? Chocolate? Marshmallows?” Sometime humans got offended when you didn’t accept gifts from them. Especially in the case of food. He’d read that in ‘human manners for dummies’.  
“Marshmallows” Spock said, he supposed it was probably the least likely to kill him. Pavel grinned and chucked them at him.  
“Thanks.” Spock said.  
“No problem. The food bank of Pavel is for all.” Pavel said happily flexing their arms as though they were a hero who had fed a starving nation.  
“He didn’t even want it” Nyota said.  
“The food bank is for all! Wether they want it or not!” Pavel said with a clap of his hands. Spock turned the marshmallow over in his hand to read the ingredients as he opened up his alarm to change it to 6:30am.


	11. Run

Several alarms began that morning, and a little after half six, the curtains lifted to reveal three people, in sports gear. Nyota, was sparkling, Christine, looked like she had the day before, and Spock looked almost the same, his hair still in a hat. Nyota wore black leggings with black trainers, and a black jumper of which she had pushed the sleeves up. Spock wore jogging bottoms and a black t-shirt. They, quietly departed the room walking past the people still asleep in their beds, except for Charlie. Charlie’s bed was still empty.  
“Did Charlie come in last night?” Spock whispered and the others glanced back.  
“I don’t know.” Nyota said.  
“I don’t think he did” Christine whispered.

Outside was misty, thick air rolled over the field and they jogged around it. Spock didn’t know what he was doing. To start with he had jogged slowly, as that seemed easy, and he didn’t wish to outrun them. But half-way around the field he found he couldn’t keep up the slow pace. He had never done long term stamina work, and although due to his dual heritage he did have the same ability to keep up with human stamina, it currently wasn’t part of his exercise regime, at least not when it came to jogging. However he did know he could out walk any vulcan in the heat. So he was surprised at discovering, he currently could not out jog a human on earth. Still if had had been running he’d probably be more than several miles away from these humans.

He immediately decided that he had made a terrible mistake to embarrass himself in front of two very sporty people, he stopped to walk.  
“You were doing so good for your first time” Nyota encouraged.  
“Not the worst I’ve seen” Christine said.  
“I want to go around two times, I’ll wait for you when I’m done” Nyota encouraged.  
“Okay, thanks.” Spock said, and they jogged off together. Spock gave himself two minutes, jogged for two minutes, and then gave himself another walking break. The field was huge. There was a football field on the field, Spock half thought eight football fields could have fit on it. He was walking past the creepy forest, when he heard a creature behind him, panting. He stopped jogging and slowed down, and the creature came to a halt by his side. It was a large girl, 5 times the size of him, and a good half taller than him, wearing leggings, a long sports shirt, and an obviously large sports bra.  
“Morning.” She said.  
“Morning.” He replied.  
“This your first run?” She asked.  
“Jog, yes. Was I that bad?” Spock asked.  
“No! I just got a magic way to tell.” She said and winked  
“It is my first jog of the year… possibly my last.” Spock nodded.  
“Aw! Don’t say that. Before the summer I could run 15 minutes at a time with for a good 2 hours. Ruined all my good work by not doing any exercise over the summer, and it doesn’t help that the vending machines outside of school are pleasant to use.”  
“Oh you mean unlike that creepy vending machine?” Spock asked.  
“Isn’t it just? This year they’ve add Taurus posters to it. That’s super insensitive there are kids who survived that who could attend school.”  
“I’m no Taurus kid, but I’m just not going to buy sweets this year.”  
“Thats probably smart thinking. During summer brake the second I ate a chocolate bar, I just couldn’t stop. It was so good, as I hadn’t eaten one for almost a whole year. Although, now I know, I won’t be making that mistake again.”  
“Didn’t you go home for a holiday before summer? A winter holiday maybe?” Spock asked.  
“No. You can. I mean some kids come here from other planets, and they can’t afford the space tickets back every holiday, so technically the school stays open. My folks live all the way down the country, so it’s a big drive, and they lazy as fuck. Plus my bestie was staying. We thought there was going to be a robot uprising at the time… can’t remember why. Anyway, I have got to run again, not that I got my breath back because I spent way too much time talking.” She jogged fast, and with good form, and halfway back to the school she stopped, she ran about four minutes at a time. Spock did a shorter run, but did some quality speed walking to catch up with her.  
“I’m glad you caught up. I forgot to say” she panted.  
“Say what?”  
“You’ve got a massive hole in the side of your shirt.”  
“What?!” Spock says surprised as she pointed to the side of his armpit. It was a fairly big hole, about 5cm’s wide, just enough for his sports bra to show. Although because his t-shirt was so baggy anyway it did just look like another under shirt from the angle he was, so he wasn’t too worried about it. Spock thought hard about how the hole could have got in his shirt.  
“Happened to one of mine. You gotta put away your clothes in your drawers, theres a rumour that the schools infested with orion moths. Big fellas that eat clothes” she says and winks.  
Spock frowns “this is literally a new shirt” he says.  
“Ohh maybe it was the moths. I wouldn’t worry about it, everyone looks pretty well presented now, but give it another month and all the first years are going to look like trash.”  
“Hmm. Well I’d prefer not to look like trash.”  
“You got an extra sports top?” She asked.  
“No.”  
“Could always go into town. Theres a few good shops there.” Spock nodded considering it as Nyota and Christine passed them by, both bright red in their face.  
“Have they even stopped? Jesus they’re going to have a heart attack. I’ve seen a kid have a heart attack trying to run this.”  
“Really?”  
“Usually when you run a tracked field several times you’ll get up to a mile, but this whole things 3k.” She gestured  
“What? How much did I run? Actually” Spock said “never mind I started walking almost immediately.”  
“It’s so far though it’s still a super healthy walk for you.”  
“I guess” Spock nodded at her logic.  
“I’m May by the way.” She said as her watch began beeping  
“I’m Spock.”

Spock joined the others who had been waiting for him for about 10 minutes. They were panting hard, Nyota put her thumb up as Spock approached.  
“You did so well!” She said, as though the oxygen from the atmosphere was leaving the planet as she said it.  
“Thanks” Spock said “I thought you were going for a more casual jog, you seem like expert joggers.”  
“I am trying to be an athlete” Christine nodded and wiped the sweat from her head.  
“Nah” Nyota waved “just my daily 2k.”  
“Nyota, that whole field is 3k, I think you did 6k.” Spock said.  
“It’s what?” Nyota squeaked.  
“It’s 6k.”  
“Are you okay Nyota ?” Christine asked concerned “you want me to carry you back to the common room?”  
“I’m fine!” She wheezed her face sweating as much darker shade.

The common room seemed to have an air of empty, there were other people up now, one who was eating a bowl of mixed fruit while studying by the table, another in pyjamas with a tray of chocolate, and coffee their phone playing anime as they departed for the beanbag room. Others were reading or heading our in gym clothes. Nyota turned sharply walked to the sink and put her head under it, gulping the water. She sat up turned sharply and walked back to their dorm room. Spock walked over and picked up a glass, and poured an ice cold water from the tap. Christine did the same, and they leant against the side as they drank.  
“Are you going to do that run, walk again tomorrow?” Christine asked.  
“I guess I could. I didn’t realise how bad at jogging I was, it would be good if I could get better” Spock said, “although I’ll need a new shirt, this ones torn.”  
“Oh, I didn’t notice” she shrugs innocently.  
Spock nodded “I’ll just need to get a t-shirt before tomorrow. I will probably have to head into town…”  
“I want to go into town” Christine said her eyes sparkling.  
“You’re welcome to come with me” Spock said shrugging “I don’t even know how to get out of this building.”  
“Oh, no me neither actually.” She gestured with her hand as she talked.  
“I’ve got science first, I could just ask the teacher after class.” Spock suggested.  
Christine nodded “what class are you in?”  
“2B I think.”  
“Me too, I’m going to follow you there, I tried finding my divination group with a bunch of guys - and they were total wankers. Idiots, I ended up being 20 minutes late for my divination class.”  
“I think they let us off for being late for our first lessons.”  
“Yeah, but I’m trying to set a good impression, because I’m probably going to punch someone later and I need the rest of my schooling year to be spotless.”  
Spock nodded confused “well its the effort that counts, so I hear. Whats divination?”  
“Tarot cards and shit it’s my specialist subject” Christine shrugged as she picked up a sponge from the sink and washed her glass “I’m going to shower.” Spock nodded and waited a moment before doing the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment if your reading! :)


	12. He's dead Tyler

Chapter 12  
Spock was unpacking his suitcase into the drawers beneath his bed when Christine entered. Hikaru was running a comb through his hair. Nyota was putting away her makeup up into a small bag, she had spent almost an hour doing her makeup, so she was present when Christine said it.  
“I think Charlie’s dead.” She said it loud enough for the sleeping babies to hear. Pavel’s alarm went off again. The first time it had Spock had been looking for his clothes to change into and that was almost an hour ago. These people were very strange, why set an alarm if you didn’t plan on getting up? Pavel turned the alarm off, the curtains were drawn up. Pavel laid still in bed their tired teary eyes blinking.  
“Did you say Charlie was dead?” Pavel’s voice squeaked.  
“Yeah, I think he died in the shower yesterday morning, and he’s still there.” Christine said with her arms crossed.  
“If he was dead, wouldn’t someone have noticed?” Spock asked.  
“No, not unless he’s missing in lesson this morning” Nyota said “they let people take odd days off.”  
“Yeah I think we’re the ones that are supposed to notice.” Christine said, and Janice’s curtains were slowly pulled up. She sat up rubbing her face, deep black marks beneath her eyes, and smudged eyeliner on her forehead, it looked like she had barely slept.  
“Did you see Charlie last night?” Nyota asked.  
“No” Janice said leaning an elbow against a raised knee.  
“Show me what shower he’s in” Nyota said, and almost without a second thought the whole group followed Christine into the boys bathroom.

The bathroom looked identical to the girls. Christine patted the door of the second last shower door, next to wall.  
“Why were you in the boys bathroom?” Nyota asked casually.  
“There were like a hundred girls in the other bathroom at the time, so I just came in here with Charlie” Christine said, I saw him go in there. Nyota thought for a second before hitting on the door hard.  
“Charlie? Is anyone in this shower?” Nyota yelled. They were all eagerly awaiting a reply. But no reply echoed out the white room. Nyota tried giving the handle a good yank, it was locked. Nyota looked to Christine and the others.  
“Whoever’s in the second shower if you don’t reply we’re going to kick the door down” Hikaru yelled. Still no reply.  
“I don’t know if that’s Charlie, but I think someone in there, is dead.” Nyota said.  
“We need to get a prefect” Hikaru said.  
“I know where Tyler is” Janice yawned “I’ll go get him.”

Janice returned with Tyler and two other elder years, all of whom were in their pyjamas. The two elder years seemed excited, they stood behind Tyler whispering.  
“Oh there’s a lot of you” Tyler said pausing for a moment in front of the group “you really think he’s dead?” They nodded.  
“Shit” Tyler said wiping sleepy dust from his eyes. He stood in front of the door and banged on it so hard that Spock thought he might knock it from it’s hinges.  
“Who’s in this shower?” Tyler yelled into the white door. No reply. He grabbed the circular handle and gave it a good shake, but it didn’t budge.  
“I’m a prefect! I’ll open the door if you don’t reply, and then everyone out here’s going to see you butt naked” Tyler yelled. He waited a moment, curious eyes darting between the groups. The sound of several hearts beating, loud enough for Spock to hear. Tyler looked nervous.  
“That usually works” Tyler said taking a step back from the door, he took a deep breath and then said “if you don’t want to see a dead kid, and probably get PTSD, I need you to turn around now.” He watched the group waiting for them all - waiting for any of them to turn around. None of the first years moved a muscle, but one of the elder years did.  
“Oh I can’t looked” she squeaked covering her eyes and turning around. Tyler rolled his eyes.  
“I’m going to get PTSD” Tyler said, and hovered his shaking card over the scanner. The door unlocked with a clunk, and he slowly pushed the door open.

They all leaned forwards, even the elder years wanting to know what horror this room would bring, on just the third day of school. The room was made of two segments, the shower, with a moveable blurred glass barrier at the far end, and a big space for changing at the end near to them. The floor was made of lumpy white tiles, and the walls were made from plastic for easy cleaning. The changing area had a few pegs, on which were a couple of shirts. On the floor of the changing room was…. nothing. Nothing at all. It was empty.  
“Why am I disappointed?” The elder year who had been squeaking with excitement said.  
“You are literally a fucking psychopath Debra.” Tyler said as he walked through the room, and pushed the glass barrier back like a door, revealing the shower head.  
“That’s weird.” Tyler said and turned around.  
“Could the door have just got pushed shut and locked itself?” Hikaru asked.  
“No, they don’t do that. They only lock when you’ve touched the handle inside the room, and can only unlock from inside” Tyler looks up the tall walls up “I suppose he could have come in and then… climbed out.” He thinks for a moment, and then shakes his head. He walks over to the clothes on the pegs and pulls them clothes off the pegs.  
“Is this stuff Charlie’s?” He asked, they all shrugged.  
“Yikes. Okay well, I’ll let someone know Charlie’s missing. Great news though! He hasn’t died in the shower!” He yelled and left the room with the elder years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed a lack of McCoy. It's to make up for the fact that I'm... i'm going to give him 2 brothers, haven't decided yet if I'm going to make them identical triplets.   
> I mean- mystery! what happened to charlie!


	13. Breakfast is different now

Chapter 13  
He had breakfast with the pad he used for reading, he needed something to look at, usually in the morning he’d browse the news, check for wars or new discoveries but he was beginning to tire of the news and he was subscribed to several science website who would email him if any new discoveries of interest were made. He had 1 email this morning about several new star systems that he had read before breakfast.  
“I can’t believe Charlie’s dead” Nyota said. The whole dorm sat at the same table except for Janice who was talking very loudly to some lads on a table over.  
“He’s not dead” Pavel said.  
“You don’t know that” Nyota said and she was right. Spock paused chickpea salad sandwich in one handle, kindle in the other.  
“I don’t think people are declared dead until a corpse is found.” Spock said.  
“Not true” Pavel said “sometimes they’re missing for as little as a year. I learnt that watching ‘Space Tiger King’.”  
“Space Tiger King’s very nasty” Hikaru said, Pavel shrugged.  
“I know, but I learnt some things about space from it.”  
“I hate whoever made that stupid documentary now a terrible tiger breeder, and horrible man is famous.” Hikaru said “other people are so much more deserving of the time used to watch that.”  
“I think he’s infamous.” Spock said.  
“You’d think. Can you believe there are people that support him?” Hikaru asked.   
“Yeah” Spock said having experienced people far worse than the Space Tiger King to have existed.  
“I haven’t seen it” Christine said and rolled her eyes.  
“I didn’t think Space Tiger King was that bad” Nyota said “I mean as a human he was horrible. But he bred loads of space tigers, I don’t understand why he wasn’t just releasing them into the wild.”  
“You know how you get space bengal tigers, and space Siberian tigers, two completely different tigers? Like different dog breeds?” Hikaru asked.  
“Yes” Nyota said thoughtfully.  
“He was mixing all the breeds together, all those tigers you saw in the show were hybrids, they literally could never be released into the wild.” Hikaru said sternly.  
“Oh. That completely changes the other woman’s zoo, I didn’t think it made sense she just kept them in cages, but now it does.” Nyota said.  
“Yep.” Hikaru nodded.  
“Although keeping the hybrid tigers alive was basically a waste of space” Pavel said “they should have put them down and just tried to breed some pure breeds.”  
“That’s very cruel” Spock said.  
“How? They shouldn’t have existed in the first place” Pavel said, and Spock knowing he was overly illogically offended, had a passing thought about walking to the bathroom and slapping himself in the face. Then he remembered that was something he saw happen in TV and actually he just needed to mediate.  
“They cannot help that. There was space for them to exist on her land, and there are other conservative projects on going elsewhere. There is no harm coming from letting them live.”  
“I guess.” Pavel shrugged.  
“I feel conned, who the made Space Tiger King, I’m going to send them an angry message” Nyota said grabbing her phone with both hands she began to angrily type away at it. They ate in silence for a moment.  
“I’ve yelled at him” Nyota said smugly, picking up her glass of sparkling water.  
“I’m sure it’ll make all the difference” Hikaru mumbled.  
“I’m going into town later with Spock, do you want to come?” Christine asked.  
Nyota put her phone down hard “yes.”  
“Can you go into town?” Hikaru asked.  
“You can go into town” Pavel said “you’ve just got to sign out at reception first, and if you’re not back for your first lesson after your town trip, they call your parents. Unless you know, you’ve mentioned it to the receptionist.”  
“I’m not heading out until the weekend. Anytime I’m near a shop I spend all my money, so I’m trying not to do that.” Hikaru said “why are you so keen to leave?”  
“Are you kidding? There’s a sweet shop in town, if I don’t get something fizzy and chewy within the next day I’m going to die.” Pavel said.  
“I need more hairspray. There should be a way to see how much you have left in a can before it goes empty, you know?” Nyota said.  
“I need a new shirt, apparently orion moths have chew a whole in my one that I was going to use for p.e.” Spock said.  
“Oh” Hikaru said thoughtfully “you know what, that’s valid, you to Nyota, Pavel I literally say you eating sweets-”  
“I don’t have enough” Pavel cut him out.  
“Hold on, I’ll see if theres like, a superstore around.” Nyota said bringing the map up on her phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where is McCoy? Where is he? What is he up to?  
> I feel like I shouldn't have tagged mccoy, in my own defence It was my original plan to put him in Spock's dorm but he is such a character, ya just can't sometimes you know?  
> Janice Rand is currently talking to him and his triplets, in this chapter! Thats background scenery baby!  
> They do appear a lot more in the second half of this story, they show up I'd say as often as Christine. Spock's not been in school very long so give him a moment, okay?  
> Or I might put him in the next chapter.  
> Haven't decided OC or Mccoy?
> 
> Fun fact James Kirk, is in the next chapter! Also a sweet shop, and.... its good....


	14. Escape

Chapter 14  
Lunch lasted for 1 and a half hours, (90 minutes). Starting at 12 with food served all the way to 1:30. Year groups were separated by lunch times, although occasionally older years would appear in the cafeteria to eat at whatever time they felt like. Spock, and the rest of his dorm that planned to go on their town outing had gathered outside the reception as they waited for Christine, who had been attending a different class. She approached with company, Jim who Spock has seen on his first day and around the common room, and another boy he hadn’t seen before.  
“This is Len and Jim by the way” Christine briefly introduced. Jim was wearing a red leather jacket over a yellow t-shirt, and he had his hands deep in his pockets, he looked up and smiled.  
“Hey” he said perking up his ears, as his eyes recognised Spock, and a few of the others.  
“Hi” Pavel said happily writing on a form before handing it to Spock. Spock signed himself out, and for some reason, nervously gave it to Jim, their hands brushing slightly as he passed it across.  
“Thanks” Jim said scribbling a name down, a name that began with ‘J’ but was longer than Jim. Could Jim be a nickname? What was it short for? Jimothy? Why did he care? Spock pulled his hat further down his forehead.  
“I haven’t seen you around before” Pavel said.  
“Yeah, well I came in late” Len grouched. For a young human he seemed to have quite a bit of stubble, his hair was un-styled pushed back over his forehead. Len took the pad off Jim and signed his name. A name longer than three letters. Another nickname? What could it be short for? Lenothy? No, Spock shook the thought from his head that can’t be right.  
“Why’s that?” Nyota asked.  
“Just got me days wrong” Len shrugged, and he walked forth handing the tablet back to reception and led the way out of the school.

A good few meters from school he stretched out his arms, took in a deep breath, and let out a sigh of relief.  
“Erm, you alright mate?” Pavel asked, before walking around him and taking the lead.  
“I’m just glad to be out of that damn hell!” Len said.  
“Hell?” Nyota asked with a smirk and raised eyebrow “its kind of tense finding the new classrooms but I quite like it.”  
“Yeah, not a fan of schools, but I haven’t found it that bad.. yet” Jim said with a shrug.  
“Thats because you’ll lucky bastards. What dorms are you all from?”  
“We’re all in zed mate” Pavel said with an accent that seemed to be getting heavier as the days passed “and the same room except Jim.”  
“Bloody bastards.”  
“Hey” Pavel said.  
“Sorry. What’s your room like?” Len asked.  
“The common room is very nice” Nyota said “gets a bit busy of an evening but when it’s like that I’ll just go sit on my bed.”  
“Ergh” Len moaned with his head back as they tracked their way down a path, Pavel had a map on his phone screen “did you know this place lets you keep your pet dogs with you?”  
“I have seen a few around school” Nyota said.  
“I was thinking about bringing my cat” Jim said “then I remembered he was technically my neighbours cat, no matter how much I fed him. Well, that was what she said when she saw me leaving with him in a cage.”  
“Was your neighbour not feeding the cat?” Spock asked.  
“Oh she was” Jim grinned “he was just a very fat boy. Like If I want to pick him up I’d have to wrap my arms around him like this.” Jim said and he motioned picking up an invisible hula-hoop.  
“I don’t think you were helping him by feeding him” Spock said.  
“Absolutely not! I was showing him love!”  
“Love is not stored in food Jim” Len mumbled.  
“Love is absolutely stored in food” Jim said with a frown.  
“Anyway there are five dogs in my dorm. Two horrible happy things” Len said “a fucking Rottweiler, a german Shepard, and one of those lassie bitches. Everything is hairy. I can’t move for a second without being covered in hair. All the cups are dirty. There’s shit on the floor, I hope from the dogs. It stinks bad and I don’t think it’s the dogs, there’s constant farting in my dorm throughout the night and everyone snores too loudly, and there’s dirt on everything.”  
“Oh, that sounds pretty bad” Pavel said.  
“Yes it does” Spock had to agree.  
“Pretty bad? I’ve seen cleaner assholes.” Len said, and Spock nodded, not sure if he was referring to the dogs or his dorm-mates.  
“One of the folks I was talking to said they had to get a dog license this weekend.” Jim said “so if they can’t be potty trained they’re being sent home. Who knows, maybe you’ll be saved.”  
“Compared, I can’t say I’ve had any trouble with my dorm” Pavel said “although though there is some farting.”  
“I’ve got to let them go at some point” Nyota said, they smiled a laugh and walked in silence for a moment.  
“Well it’s pretty good except for the dead kid” Pavel said. The others nodded. Jim frowned.  
“What? Is that what that yelling was about this morning?” he asked.  
“What the hell do you mean dead kid?” Len asked angrily.  
“Yeah” Christine said “our mate Charlie went into the showers and straight up got vaporised yesterday.”  
“The fuck?” Len asked even angrier “what do you mean vaporised? Did he go home?”  
“I don’t think so” Nyota said with a shake of her head.  
“Heres the facts” Pavel said putting up their fingers ready to count “8:30am before we’ve had our first breakfast, I awake, Christine runs into the showers, Charlie is slowly getting up.”  
“8:59 I have missed breakfast, Charlie is still in the shower, I abandon him and I still end up 20 minutes late to class.” Christine adds.  
Pavel nods wisely adding the points to his fingers “a day passes, Charlie’s suitcase remains by his bed, untouched. Charlie's shower door remained locked, locked! But when it was open there was no one inside, but there was Charlie’s clothes. He would have had to have climbed out, which doesn’t make sense.”  
“We don’t know those were Charlie’s clothes.” Nyota said.  
“There was no towel” Spock said.  
“Ohh, nice going Sherlock” Christine cooed.  
“So Charlie’s walking around the school in a towel?” Romero asked “and no ones noticed?”  
“We don’t know that” Nyota said “he might have had a medical emergency and left, and we just didn’t get told. Christine laughed.  
“What?” Pavel asked.  
“No, I’m sorry, it’s too foul.” Christine said waving her thought away.  
“Spit it out” Len said.  
“Well, his shower door was locked? What kind of illness did he have? Did he shit himself over the wall?”  
“Christine!” Nyota said disgusted, but then nodded.  
“There was no shit on the wall, but I guess your right, he must have been disintegrated while in the towel.” Pavel said thoughtfully.  
“This poor kid” Len said gruffly “he’s going to get back to his dorm and find you’ve all been talking about him and made up the worst possible theories.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obliterated 2 oc's just to give mccoy more screen time. My OC was a good moody bitch but, I should really limit myself on moody bitches. Put in some HOT spirk action, did you catch it? Ya we talking slow, slow slow moving. They've already touched hands and if I'm honest, for chapter 14, thats already too much. 
> 
> Thinking about writing a different fic where Tyler's Captain of the enterprise and I'm not justifying it. 
> 
> Triplets is too many siblings Leonard may have one sibling... but should he be a twin? Hmmm... OH oR A SISTER. Let me know in the comments, and also thoughts. Next chapter a sweet shop - to die for :p


	15. Places like this exist, and they are glorious

Chapter 15  
The new shirt and hair spray were the easiest things to pick up. Pavel took the lead with his map and bolstered nosily forward with everyone following behind.  
“Why don’t we just go to one of these shops?” Len asked pointing to the popular high street shops.  
“No, no this shop, iz the best” Pavel said “you won’t want sweets from any where else.” With gentle chatter the group followed Pavel through a dozen tiny alley-ways too small for cars, and possibly even bikes. Through the final alley they remerged free of town noise. One road below their feet and a fleet of one floored buildings with grey painted, or dusted up windows. On the opposite side of the road was a field, and across the field was a cars sales. Pavel led them past three squalor houses, and then pointed proudly at one with a hand painted sign ‘sweets’ and a door that had been kicked so much that wooden splinters were falling out of it.  
“Er, Pavel?” Nyota asked with one raised eyebrows “this is the famed sweetshop?”  
“Nyota, you know what they say? Don’t judge a book by a cover, don’t you know?” Pavel said, hanging on to the rusty door handle.  
“Books have graphic designers so that you can judge a book by the cover” Spock said “it’s skilled work. A good graphic artist will show you what genre the book is and the main features alone.”  
“But a cover can never tell you about the feelings that books will put forth in you personally. Where one feels disgust, one will feel love, even surprising the individuals themselves.” Pavel said, and Spock was completely lost, and out of his depth.  
“Oh go on then” Len sighed and waved with his hand “can’t be worse than my dorm.”  
“Thats the spirit” Pavel said enthusiastically and opened the door.

The inside was dusty and claustrophobic. A statue of an old woman, with a cloth hat and robotic eye with a life of its own sat behind a towering till. Jars of old discoloured sweets sat on shelfs above her head.  
“Hmmm” Nyota said hand on chin as she looked at a jar labeled gobstoppers’. It was full of cobwebs. Spock found the health rating of the shop beneath his shoe. The rating was 0. Spock gently nudged Nyota and pointed to it. Nyota grimaced at the sign, disappointed but not surprised.  
“I’ll take two credits worth of haribo please” Pavel said boldly. The old lady, took two minutes to turn around and grab the tub of haribo. A minute unscrewing the lid. A minute trying to scoop out the melted haribo. And another minute shaking it upside down over the scales.  
“2 credits for the whole tub” the old lady said, trying to hand the tub to Pavel.  
“The whole thing! What a bargain” Pavel said excitedly handing across the money.  
“Thats me done, do you guys want anything?” Pavel asked.  
“No” Christine said urgently.   
“I’m good” mumbled the rest and they quickly made their way out. The walk back was disappointing. It was a new experience for Spock, he’d never walked into a shop that bad, and he was pretty sure the others hadn’t either.

Pavel opened the tub, and struggled to pull a single haribo free. It had stopped being many haribo long ago.   
“Hold on guys” Nyota said stopping the group outside a .93 credit shop “I just need to get a thing, I’ll be back in a second.” They stopped and waited curious eyes on Pavel who was not disturbed by the melted horror.  
“Buddy” Christine said, “whats wrong with you?”  
Pavel sighed “it’ still haribo. Do you want one?”  
“No” Christine said, and Pavel gestured the tub to Spock. Did the rules of friendship apply to this? If he was the only one to accept surely Pavel would like him more? Spock made a dangerous bet with himself.  
“Sure I’ll eat one” Spock said.  
“What is wrong with you hat kid!” Len almost screamed both hands on his head. That was not the reaction Spock had been expecting. Was this an enemy?  
“Buddy..” Christine frowned.  
“I’m not one to waste food” Jim said stressful “but please don’t.”  
“Theres nothing wrong with it” Pavel said crossly.  
“Pull me one out Pavel and I’ll eat it” Spock said, and Pavel began frantically pulling at the solid block. Jim’s eye darted with a slight glossed smile, he covered with his hand as he twigged Spock’s dangerous bet. Len sighed relieved when he came to terms with the fact that Pavel was not going to get a single sweet free.  
“Oi hat kid, whats your name anyway?” Len asked. Enemy?  
“Spock.”  
“Why are you wearing a hat?”  
“Shiny.”  
“Oh your one of those kids” Len said and rolled his eyes.  
“One of what?” Spock asked quietly, eyes glancing to Christine.  
“You just ignore him. The big meany.” Christine said.  
“Listen, people that like shiny things, lack depth. I bet theres not a single thought that runs through your mind.”  
“Len” Jim said “don’t be rude, I think he’s cute. I think his hat is cute.”  
“Yahh sure thats what you said” Christine mumbled looking at her phone.  
“Fine, at least I - don’t sleep in a dog shit bed” Spock said, cutting out his original complaint about his emotions in favour for a more human insult.  
“I don’t want the dog shit in my bed” Len moaned loudly. Nyota left the .93 credit store, with a small storage bowl in one hand, and a multipack of haribo in the other.  
“Please do not eat that.” Nyota said firmly and pressed the packet of haribo into Pavel’s chest.  
Pavel gasped “thank you Nyota! You are a goddess, for your sake alone, I will not eat the haribo.”   
“Oh.” Nyota said.  
“You’re giving up already?” Spock asked. Pavel frowned, with fury between his eyes as he gave Spock a glance. Oops. Friend to enemy already. Spock averted his gaze.  
“I don’t know mate I’m kinda with - fuck, what was your name? I’m with hat kid. Now I’m kinda disappointed you’re not going to eat them.” Len said.  
“Spock” Spock mumbled.  
“What are you going to do with them?” Jim asked gesturing to the tub.  
“Do not” Len warned Jim. Pavel thought for a moment, as he handed out the miniature packets to everyone, including Nyota and Spock. Friends? Enemies? Oh no, this was too hard now he didn’t know.  
“I’m sure I’ll find something.” Pavel said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, this sweet shops based on one I visited. ..... I ... ate t he melted haribo 
> 
> Please leave comments they are my nutrition. Leave anything, emojis a line a dot


	16. Divination, logical?

Chapter 16  
It had been less that a week since Spock had chosen to study divination, foolishly thinking that his father upon hearing of such antics would tell him to leave school, head home, and study only subjects that logically mattered there. He had not. For a healthy human brain, humans needed to play and a good play often called for some part of the imagination to be activated. Whether this imagination was used to plan an escape route in a fantasy game, planning a painting, writing, or some form of make believe, the brain would harvest what it need. As long as these activities were not based within work. For that reason Spock was looking forward to divination. Like a freshly emerged scientist, ready to watch apes in their natural habitat.

He was curious if he needed to play. It was unlikely he’d ever know, unless vulcans suddenly became the beings of logic they claimed to be, and outlawed child marriages. Very few vulcans were single for a length of time, and fewer of those worked around humans. Mixed with the knowledge that vulcans could occasionally kill other vulcans they were mating with during pon-farr, it created little wiggle room for human/vulcan relations. An even smaller percentage of these couples would choose to raise a child, often having difficulty choosing between adopting a human, and adopting a vulcan, finding adversaries at either end. Until Spock, it was even widely rumoured (though most good scientist would tell you otherwise) that a human, vulcan child could never exist, and those that did would face any possible number of ‘disabilities’. Then, it was down to money. There were other vulcan-hybrids, he had looked it up, but he hadn’t found them. Scattered. Hidden. With terrorist groups threatening and in some cases successfully blowing up mixed species couples and their children, he didn’t blame them. A search of human/vulcan hybrids would bring up one face, his own younger self, Ambassador Sarek, and honoured Amanda Greyson of the federation. So Spock didn’t know if he needed to play. But he often drew pictures, and with no intention of another living soul ever seeing them, so he supposed, if he did need to, then he already did.

The class room was small, the walls rounded, with at least 30 small round tables with long drooped purple table-cloths pointing towards a desk and chalkboard. On the chalk board at the front of the class was the instructions ‘take out your crystal balls, 1 between 2 people and set in centre of table’. In front of the chalk board was a desk. On that desk was a woman. Madame Mac, the board read. Dark hair, beautiful features from several different ethnic background, a single mole beneath her right eye, and nipple piercings. She was not wearing a bra, and she was wearing a very light pink shirt made from a fabric more often used for summer scarfs. Her nipple piercings were clear. In fact it was hard look at anything else. She stared upwards, showing off her neckline and collarbones, where eyes could easily drift to her chest, especially with her saying nothing. With nothing else to do Spock followed the instructions on the board. Spock put his in the centre of the table, and Pavel who sat with him stared through it. They didn’t to have their own crystal ball. Finally the woman took a deep breath, her head turning to point accusingly at the class.  
“Are you all done staring at my nipples?” She said angrily “great, then let us begins, and this class better remember where my eyes are.”

Madam Mac circled her desk at the front “usually I teach tarot cards for a first lesson, but today I’m not in the mood. Today lets look into our crystals.”   
Spock looked into his crystal. Pavel looked into the crystal. The only other person from his dorm that had this class was Janice, and she was sitting across from a non-gender specific being who looked suspiciously like Len, and making kissy faces at them through the crystal.  
“Look into the crystal, look hard and tell me what you see” Madam Mac cried. Spock looked into the crystal, he saw Pavel’s hands through the crystal, and the table cloth. Pavel took a pen and wrote on their hand and then turned it, showing the word ‘the future’. Spock raised his eyebrows, with a smirk  
“You child, what do you see” Madam Mac pointed to Spock. No! The smirk wasn’t even real he was attempting friendliness. Spock looked with real horror to Pavel. Pavel grinned.  
“Pavel’s hands on the other side of the table?” Spock said.   
“No my dear, look harder, what do you see the future has in store?” Madam Mac asked, and Spock wasn’t sure why, but he glanced into the crystal. There was still nothing there but his own face. It looked fat in the reflection. Probably all those extra calories from human meals and puddings, he should really monitor himself better, he had been getting foolishly excited at the different flavours offered.  
“I get fat” Spock sighed.  
“You see only your own future, you are small minded” Madam Mac said, and waved him away. Fantastic. Pavel was laughing.  
“I see something” Janice said sharply.  
“What?” Madam Mac turns sharply, with excited fire streaming from her eyes.  
“The love of my life.” Janice proclaims and she winks across the table. The person who looked like Len, but was not, sighed angrily, and embarrassedly waved a hand at her.  
“Oh stop” they said.  
Madam Mac sighed “okay. This was my fault.” She gives up, physically appearing to deflate. She walked over to her table and picked up a large stack of tarots card.  
“Lets begin by making believers out of you.”


	17. Toxic Curry

Chapter 17

Spock wasn’t sure why, but it had happened. This monster - no this alien creature had settled in his chest. It was foul and it fluttered away at the other creature that had been sleeping their since he was young. He was hopeful. It was illogical. It was illegal to feel, any sign of emotion was a sign of weakness - a sign of an idiot. A sign he was more mentally deficient than he could ever consciously be aware of. Yet it felt nice, and there was no one here who could see past his plastered on expressionless mask, so the hope stayed.

The dinner line moved quickly as he read the menu. He looked for what he could consume. Vegan chickpea curry or vegetarian lasagne? Then he remembered his cheese ban. Chickpea curry it was. Rose lemonade or lemon, lemonade? He frowns and takes the rose, although he knew he should only consume water. He made a deal with himself that he’d make sure his diet was more suited to his vulcan psychology - next week. He leaves the pudding. He doubts he’d be able to eat it anyway.

Pavel and Nyota both have goat curry, Hikaru had chickpea curry, and Christine had lasagne. Pavel is sweating. Pavel uses a jumper to wipe sweat from their forehead.

“Curry's a bit spicy isn’t it?” Pavel asks.

“I don’t think mine has a single chilli in it” Hikaru sighs “thats what happens when you become vegan, people start assuming you can’t handle heavy flavours.”

“My curries not that warm” Nyota slowly said “mild maybe.”

“It is not” Pavel said aghast “this is boiling.”

“Whats wrong with you?” Nyota asked “it’s mild.”

“Can I try?” Christine asked.

“Sure” Nyota said. Christine gently stabbed a bit of pepper and gave it a slow chew her eyes going wide.

“Goddamn! I should have had that. It’s like, so mild, like a little tingle warm. It is so good. Pavel, you want to swap with me?” Christine asked.

“No. I’m a tough guy who don’t care.” Pavel said.

“You’ve made yourself suffer to appear tough while eating a pepper. Absolutely the dumbest shit I’ve seen all day. I am eating the pepper, I am not hurting myself. I am enjoying my own meal, and I’m having a good day.” Nyota said.

“You gotta get out of that toxic masculinity mindset” Hikaru suggested.

“But I’m non-binary” Pavel moaned.

“Does eating the chilli make you feel tough, like a man?” Hikaru asked. Pavel’s eyes go wide in the direction of the curry.

“Make me feel good.”

“Have you considered going to the gym and getting physically tough so you do not have to compensate in strange ways?” Nyota asked.

“Not my style” Romero shrugged.

“Alright, but you look like I did after a 6K run, and I did not enjoy the process of that.” Nyota said finishing her meal, and placing her pudding (cake) in the tub she had brought earlier.


	18. Dials in Orbit

Chapter 18  
That evening Spock returned to his spot in the quiet sectioned area of the common room. He found the same space, the only by the window, and switched on his tablet to call his mother. He told her day, and about Charlie. Amanda absently rubbed her at her cheek, as she silently thought for a moment, like she would before it was her turn to move a chess piece.  
“Secret door?” Amanda suggested.  
“No.” Spock said.  
“Hatch under the tiles?”  
“Well I didn’t check…”  
“Teleported out by aliens?”  
“No, there’s teleport blockers all around to stop that” Spock said “will you come rescue me if mysteriously go missing?”  
“I’d rescue you if you went missing, I’d rescue you if you kidnapped by one hundred and ten angry klingons.”  
“Well thats specific” Spock said with a tilt on his head and the smallest smiled playing at the corner of his lips “but I appetite it.”  
“Hows everything else? What’s it like sharing a room with 6 people?”  
“Just five last night” Spock said “it was fine. They were noisy…snoring? And their breathing is too loud, but I did manage to fall asleep.”  
“Did you use your ear plugs?”  
“No. I don’t’ want to just yet but its not so bad. The worst thing is the morning. Everyone has alarms that go off at different times.”  
“Oh. Maybe you could all agree on one alarm.”  
“Nah, we get up at different time. Anyway. I have homework. Which is school work I have to do in this building, in my spare time, which I don’t understand.”  
“You revise in your spare time all the time though” Amanda said.  
“Yeah but I don’t understand how its homework.”  
“Used to be done in students homes.”  
“Oh…. okay…. so I have science homework to complete” Spock said slurping his tropical fruit tea and placing it back on the window ledge he sat on.  
“Okay, well I’m going to go now.”  
“Okay” Amanda laughed “love you, bye.”  
“Bye.” Spock turned off his phone and took out his headphones, picking his study book up. He pushed the window open, a cool breeze formed goosebumps on his arm that weren’t entirely unpleasant.


End file.
